The City We Became

The City We Became is a 2020 urban fantasy novel by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It was developed from (with the prologue specifically adapted from) her short story "The City Born Great", first published in her collection How Long 'til Black Future Month? It is her first novel since her triple Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth series and the first in her Great Cities series, followed by The World We Make, released in November 2022.

Plot
The City We Became takes place in New York City, in a version of the world in which major cities become sentient through human avatars. After the avatar of New York falls into a supernatural coma and vanishes, a group of five new avatars representing the five boroughs come together to fight their common Enemy.

A homeless black graffiti artist who inhabits rooftops is told that he is the avatar of New York City by Sao Paulo, the avatar of the Brazilian city, who warns that avatars face a great enemy. The avatar is chased through the streets by shape-shifting creatures attempting to take over the city; he defeats them but is wounded and destroys the Williamsburg Bridge in the process.

A black gay graduate student who just moved to the city gets off the train and is struck with amnesia; realizing that he is the avatar of Manhattan, he takes the name Manny. He encounters white tendrils on FDR Drive and destroys them by channeling the power of the city. He encounters the Woman in White in a park, and defeats her with the help of Brooklyn Thomason, a black woman who is the avatar of Brooklyn. They sense the manifestation of another borough's avatar and head to Queens to find them.

On Staten Island, the borough's avatar Aislyn, a white librarian in her thirties, is approached by the Woman in White, who offers to protect Aislyn from the avatar of New York City; they bond over racist humor. Bronca Siwanoy, a Lenape woman who is the avatar of the Bronx, is threatened by the Woman in White, who vanishes during the confrontation; Bronca as the oldest borough receives the historical knowledge of living cities and their enemy. Manny and Brooklyn search the Internet and sense the avatars of the Bronx and Queens, an Indian PhD student named Padmini.

At the Center, Bronca reviews a painting titled "dangerous mental machines" (a term coined by H.P. Lovecraft in a racist letter to refer to Asian New Yorkers) by the "Alt Artistes", an alt-right group controlled by the Woman in White. The painting turns out to be an interdimensional portal and the Center's staff kick out the Artistes. Manny and Brooklyn arrive in Padmini's magically protected apartment and stay the night. Soon after, Bronca is offered 23 million dollars to exhibit the Alt Artistes' work by the Woman in White, who appears as Dr. White of the "Better New York Foundation". After Bronca turns her down, the Alt Artistes doxx her and her friend and co-worker from Jersey City Veneza.

In Staten Island, Aislyn's father invites a neo-Nazi to stay with them; he sexually harasses Aislyn before she uses her powers to stop him and leaves the house. Sao Paulo meets her and tries to get her to join the other avatars, only for her to hurt him with an energy wave due to being told by the Woman in White that the cities are assaulting her home. At the center, Manny, Brooklyn, Padmini, and Bronca enter "cityspace" together to find the avatar of New York City. Bronca explains parallel dimensions are real and that cities puncture the walls between them at their birth, destroying nearby dimensions. As they exit cityspace, Hong Kong enters carrying the heavily injured Sao Paulo. The group researches and finds that the Woman in White is using non-profits like the Foundation to weaken cities before their birth.

Manny and Sao Paulo find the avatar of New York City in the old City Hall Station but cannot awaken him. Bronca, Brooklyn, Padmini, and Hong travel to Staten Island and discover the Woman in White is R'lyeh, a city from another dimension. Aislyn sides with the Woman in White, who is holding Veneza hostage, and blasts them away with an energy wave that deposits the avatars of the boroughs and Veneza in Wall Street. Veneza transforms into the avatar of Jersey City, and together with the borough avatars, awakens the avatar of New York City. The avatars burn away the Woman in White, restricting her to Staten Island. Weeks later, the avatars celebrate on the Coney Island boardwalk. Hong Kong summons the living cities to a summit in Paris to discuss the Woman in White's hold over Staten Island, and the avatar of the New York City joins the celebrating avatars of the boroughs.

The avatars

 * The Primary: the avatar of New York City. A queer Black homeless young man. A graffiti artist and hustler.
 * Manny: the avatar of Manhattan. A queer Black man in his late 20s. When he becomes Manhattan's avatar, he loses most memory of his former life as a newly arrived PhD student, representing his role as a new New Yorker. He can allow non-avatar New Yorkers to see the Enemy if he needs to use them. He is a somewhat ruthless strategist and channels the violent cut-throat nature of Manhattan and to a lesser extent the power of the financial markets. He has a crush on the Primary and feels a need to protect him.
 * Brooklyn "MC Free" Thomason: the avatar of Brooklyn. A Black, middle-aged former rapper, lawyer, and current city councilwoman. She has a child and a sick father. Her power is rooted in music: she can use it to attack and can sense the music in the city's noise.
 * Bronca Siwanoy: the avatar of The Bronx. A lesbian Lenape woman in her 60s. She has a PhD, a hot temper, and a son, and works at the Bronx Art Center. She is the oldest of the six avatars and thus the holder of the city's lexicon of knowledge. She channels her power through steel-toed boots which she used to kick men who sexually harassed her when she was 11 and police informants at Stonewall when she was 17.
 * Padmini Prakash: the avatar of Queens. A 25-year-old Tamil immigrant graduate student living in Queens. Her first name means "she who sits on the lotus". She can use mathematical imagination to change physical reality.
 * Aislyn Houlihan: the avatar of Staten Island. A 30-year-old Irish-American woman who lives with her parents on Staten Island. Her father is an abusive, racist cop who calls her "Apple", though her name means "dream". She can become invisible.
 * Veneza: the avatar of Jersey City. A young Black and Portuguese woman who works with Bronca at the Bronx Art Center.

Other characters

 * São Paulo: the avatar of the city he is named for. He grew up in favela and became the avatar during the military dictatorship. He is brown-skinned, lean, and a smoker whose cigarette smoke can combat the Enemy. He is the youngest living city which is why he was tasked with helping birth New York.
 * Hong Kong: the avatar of the city he is named for. He became the avatar during the Opium Wars. He has a Chinese-inflected British accent.
 * R'lyeh (AKA "The Enemy"): an infectious, otherworldly life form that wants to take over the newly born city of New York. It appears in many forms, including the Woman in White, Dr. White, mind-controlling fungal fronds, and x-shaped spider-like creatures. In an interview with Time, N. K. Jemisin notes that the antagonistic forces in the book oftentimes are metaphors for gentrification.

Reception
The New York Times review stated, "In the face of current events, The City We Became takes a broad-shouldered stand on the side of sanctuary, family and love. It’s a joyful shout, a reclamation and a call to arms." NPR wrote that the novel is "a love letter, a celebration and an expression of hope and belief that a city and its people can and will stand up to darkness, will stand up to fear, and will, when called to, stand up for each other." A review in Slate said, "The city she sings fizzes so joyously through the veins of this novel that anyone mourning the New York before COVID-19 will likely find The City We Became equally sustaining and elegiac, a tribute to a city that may never fully return to us."