Shadowshaper

In this section, Sierra finally gets to see firsthand what shadowshapers do and how they use their power. Once again, Older combines elements of this fantastical world with real-life issues in Sierra’s neighborhood. At Bennie’s house, Sierra notices that it looks markedly different. Though Sierra and Bennie have been lifelong friends, Sierra hardly recognizes the neighborhood anymore, noting that it feels “like another planet” (81). Bennie’s neighborhood is being gentrified, a process where urban communities—often with working-class families and people of color—get bought out and upscaled to encourage white, middle-class people to move in. Bennie calls this process “Takeover,” and though it has been happening for several years, Sierra suddenly realizes just how much the place has shifted. Though Sierra’s story is fictional, this process of gentrification is currently happening in many boroughs of New York City like Brooklyn and Queens, as more and more people move into the area and real-estate prices skyrocket.

Though some parts of gentrification might not seem so bad—like having access to more stores, restaurants, and so forth—Sierra feels firsthand the implicit racism of the process. Upscaling a neighborhood usually includes getting rid of the people of color who have lived in that neighborhood all their lives. Though Sierra knows Bennie’s neighborhood well, she is made to feel like a stranger: “[…] she was getting funny stares from all sides—as if she was the out-of-place one, she thought” (82). Sierra describes the two different reactions she generally gets from the white people now populating the area: they either give her a “don’t-cause-no-trouble look” or the “I-want-to-adopt-you-look" (81). These two extremes show the spectrum of how gentrification impacts the people of color living in a neighborhood. Sierra is treated like either a threat or a novelty, not as a person, and she’s made to feel out of place and uncomfortable in her own home. Older includes Sierra’s perspective on gentrification to in turn encourage his readers to think about this issue.

Another issue that Older subtly weaves into the novel is a defiance of stereotypes. In Chapter 13, the reader learns that Bennie loves science: “Bennie had spent every year of the decade that Sierra had known her obsessed with one branch of the natural sciences or another” (84). Though Bennie supports Sierra’s story about the shadowshapers, Bennie approaches it with a logical mindset, wanting to consider what other explanations for the shadowshaping phenomena might be. The societal stereotype of a scientist would be an old white man in a lab coat, but Bennie defies these descriptions: She is a young, black, female who wears fashionable outfits. Similarly, the character Nydia takes Sierra—and the reader—by surprise when she reveals that she’s the head of the anthropology archive; she, too, is a young woman of color, not an old white man. Characters like Bennie and Nydia help to normalize for the reader that not everyone who studies science or works at a university needs to come from a certain demographic. People can defy expectations and have a range of interests and strengths, regardless of what society might expect.

As Sierra gets to know more about the shadowshapers, she discovers this new world is exciting but also potentially dangerous. In Club Kalfour, Sierra is amazed by the murals coming to life, describing her first sighting with “awe” (92), and finding it difficult not to “freak out” (93). The depictions of the lavish murals dancing and canoodling show the exciting possibilities of this new world that Sierra has entered. However, this excitement is also tempered by the reminder that shadowshaping can be extremely dangerous. Shortly after leaving the club, Sierra is chased down by corpuscules and approached by a shadowy spirit that causes her to pass out. These incidents serve as a reminder that Sierra must tread carefully as she learns more about her powers, and that she must respect her role and her abilities.