New People by Danzy Senna
Published 2020 · 235 pages · 58,750 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is New People to read?
New People scores 52 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 50 out of 100
- Senna writes in contemporary, accessible prose that reflects Maria's educated voice. The vocabulary is current and conversational, occasionally touching on academic discourse from Maria's dissertation work.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Sentences are modern and fluid, moving easily between Maria's observations and her racing thoughts. The prose style matches the novel's examination of a mind coming undone.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel explores racial identity, desire, and self-construction, but mostly through Maria's obsessive behavior rather than explicit theorizing. Ideas emerge from her increasingly unhinged actions.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Senna moves quickly through Maria's life, packing in details about her relationship, her dissertation, and her fixation. The compact novel delivers its portrait efficiently.
- Narrative indirection: 52 out of 100
- Maria narrates directly, but we sense things about her that she can't or won't acknowledge. The gap between her self-perception and reality drives the novel's dark comedy.
- Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
- Maria's dissertation on Jonestown parallels her own willingness to follow destructive impulses. The poet she stalks becomes a symbol for everything her perfect life excludes.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Senna maintains wry distance from Maria's self-deceptions, allowing readers to see the absurdity of her behavior even as Maria takes it seriously. The tone balances sympathy with satire.
- Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
- The novel builds toward a confrontation with consequences, delivering a clear if uncomfortable resolution to Maria's crisis. Senna doesn't leave the ending ambiguous.
- Structural complexity: 48 out of 100
- The novel moves chronologically through Maria's unraveling, with flashbacks filling in her history. The structure is conventional, keeping focus on the psychological portrait.
How New People is regarded
New People holds a literary regard score of 52 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.