Gentrification, But Worse | When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Title: When No One Is Watching
Author: Alyssa Cole
Published: September 1, 2020
Genre(s): Mystery/Thriller
Page Count: 368
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Alyssa Cole’s debut thriller is smart, bold, and socially aware. When No One Is Watching is a suspense novel written for Black Lives Matter, and for all the other Black social movements that came before. It’s also, I think very much a book that riffs off of and converses with Jordan Peele’s films—to the point that some readers may find it derivative of Get Out more than paying tribute to it.

The subject of gentrification in urban spaces (New York, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) is distressing enough, but Cole adds an extra sheen of menace to the attempted “rejuvenation” of protagonist Sydney Green’s Brooklyn neighborhood in this book. Not only are snooty new white people moving in next door and pulling “Karen acts” in the corner bodega, but Sydney’s old neighbors are disappearing, police are even more off-leash than usual, and…there’s an awful lot of bedbugs all of a sudden?

What’s most unsettling about When No One Is Watching is how close to reality the story feels. Honestly, who is to say that rich white people in the United States aren’t currently working in concert with local police forces to disappear inconvenient Black folks from historic neighborhoods? It seems more than plausible! It’s 2020, and the seedy underbelly of white supremacy in this country no longer skulks not-so-secretly behind closed doors. 

As I said, though, I think that in some respects, the way this novel unfolds will feel very reminiscent of Get Out for a lot (or most?) readers. Similar things are happening in both stories, the plot reveals gave me a similar “WTF” reaction in both cases. I didn’t personally mind this, but I will admit that it was somewhat distracting to be reading a book only to constantly be barraged with memories of a film I watched only once, three years ago. I think because of the subject matter and the storytelling style, When No One Is Watching caused me to continually access the part of my brain where Get Out is stored, which made it difficult for me to experience this book in isolation. This doesn’t really speak to this novel or to Alyssa Cole’s talent, but it certainly informed my reading.

Other than that, I think that Roxane Gay was correct that the pacing is a bit off here—all major plot events are crammed into the last three chapters or so, whereas everything leading up to that is mostly setting the stage for the revelations to come. That being said, I didn’t mind the wonky pacing as much because of how compulsively readable When No One Is Watching is. The first half of the book flew by, and even though it didn’t seem like much was happening overall, it was nevertheless entertaining.

I think other reviewers are also correct in pointing out that the two narrating protagonists lacked depth—particularly Theo, who serves mostly as a safe, non-offensive way for Cole to explore white fragility and the microaggressions experienced by Sydney. But again: I didn’t mind so much. I don’t think the “point” of your average thriller is to deep-dive into the main character’s psyche and unearth every aspect of their personality that’s currently informing their current decisions. I think Cole strategically gave us the information we needed to know about these characters, but didn’t want to waste time with exposition. Sydney and Theo weren’t barely-drawn caricatures by any means, and though I didn’t get enough about them for me to believe in any kind of love story between them…this ain’t a romance novel.

But! In summary. When No One Is Watching is an eerie and thought-provoking look at the ways in which racism subtly exposes itself in the United States. It’s a thriller that shocks the conscience. Overall, Alyssa Cole achieved everything she was attempting here, and if specific aspects of the book lacked in finesse at times, those flaws didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story overall.