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A Feminist research is a good example of the kind of painful self-examination that Queenie Jenkins excels at. Candice Carty-Williams’ 2019 debut Queenie Unforgettably, the book begins with a doctor’s introduction to the mysterious disease of miscarriage. The sequel, Queenie Working On It, continues the story eight years on, with Queenie, 33, back on the gurney, this time for a fertility test. “I didn’t realize they made condoms for anything but…penis,” Queenie observes as the unsmiling doctor investigates. Life has changed, but in many ways, Queenie hasn’t.
Carty-Williams’ first novel about a British Jamaican woman living in London, who experiences a tragic love affair and a mental breakdown, was a bestseller. Encouragingly, her keen ear for female relationships — deep love, stubborn solidarity, sarcastic humor — endures, as does her understanding of how issues of race affect the ordinary lives of black women. These are the qualities that made Queenie feel special and interesting in 2019. They remain so in 2026, but your patience for this new book will instead depend on your tolerance for its continuing challenges.
He is, as the title suggests, a work in progress. The new Queenie has traded her menial magazine job for her role in the black community. It is this that takes her undercover to a fertility clinic, and investigates the experiences of black women during IVF treatment. When tests come back showing a slim chance of pregnancy, Queenie spirals and is forced to face her chaotic love life.
Carty-Williams is witty and funny about Queenie’s lies about her various boyfriends, especially the uncommitted Vin, who works for Transport in London. Sex with him is like “a kind of pleasure ride whose purpose is to have a stomach-dropping orgasm and to finish breathing and thank God that everything is in one piece at the end”. If Queenie isn’t always in on the joke, posing for lewd selfies for an indifferent Vin, her vain friends are there to fix her up. Colleagues like Kyazike – who calls Vin “TfL” because he “doesn’t deserve government titles until he proves himself worthy” – are recognized as fun, witty and sarcastic. That Queenie doesn’t know much, though. Fortunately, when she thinks about having sex with a teacher named Pharoah, Kyazike is there to inform her that “having sex with a PT is not wise.
But Queenie’s vulnerability to sex is a major theme that runs through the rest of the story, where sexual encounters with men are just futile attempts to connect. Sex is, for Queenie, emotional, a way she’s trying (and often failing) to fix what’s going well in her life. It helps that Carty-Williams writes bluntly, pragmatically and skillfully rather than harshly. When Queenie buys Vin a vibrating penis ring, she nods. “No, sirs… I’m not into AI stuff.”
But, as the obstetrician reminds Queenie, “the clock is ticking”. At a hen party, she finds herself texting discreetly on her phone discussing seizures and basal body temperature testing. “Why didn’t we learn these things in school?” he thinks. “Why do I need to know the basics of getting pregnant at a hen party at 33?” It’s a sharp question, and Queenie puts it in the shoes of a generation of women whose parenting choices are shaped by the pressures of financial insecurity and career planning. Queenie is not the only one who finds herself clueless and worried about her reproductive future.
When Queenie lied to her sex partners about birth control in hopes of getting pregnant, Kyazike asserts that “bringing a black child into the world on purpose single parent feels guilty, sister. It doesn’t make me happy at all.” It is an example of the ways in which Carty-Williams transforms the politics of everyday life. It’s not an overly critical statement, just an indication of Kyazike’s view of the world. What happened is the nature of Queenie’s existence, but not the thing that defines her. It’s a point that Carty-Williams always makes with masterful touch. “Please. Not a strong Black thing,” Queenie complains at one point, rolling her eyes. “We left it in 2020 when Black lives mattered. We’ve started a soft life now, or whatever the TikTok girls are saying about the latest politics. ” In any case, Queenie is probably still working on the next book.
