HANGMAN

A fantastical journey reveals a wounded heart.

Making an assured debut, Binyam spins a haunting, often surreal tale that begins one morning when the narrator, a 55-year-old Black man, receives a telephone call telling him to board a flight. His suitcase has been packed; his jacket pocket holds a ticket to the African country from which he fled to the U.S. 26 years before and where he had been a political prisoner. Even before he lands, the trip seems ominous: His seatmate suddenly dies, and he winds up sitting beside a corpse for the entire flight. Not knowing why he is returning to his homeland, he surmises it is to see his brother, who has claimed to be ill for years and who may, or may not, be dying. Manipulative, selfish, and needy, the brother has repeatedly begged for money, property, or a visa. Nevertheless, with the goal of finding him, the narrator embarks on a convoluted, disorienting trek, encountering bizarre characters and assorted long-lost relatives. He witnesses the effects of poverty and greed, exploitation and insidious corruption: A railroad project abandoned by investors, for example, left viaducts that “cast the city in shadow, enticing its inhabitants to ascend staircases that led to nowhere.” He notes that traditional cultural practices have been abandoned, undermined by consumerism, TV, and the internet, “which forced people to forget their interests, habits, and historical way of life.” Hypocrisy is rampant: A man distributes mounds of dirty clothing donated by people in rich countries to assuage their consciences. A foreign aid worker, with no expertise to improve the plight of farmers, professes that her aim is “to promote mutual understanding,” a phrase that the narrator finds incomprehensible. Reluctantly listening to uninvited confessions by random strangers, he finds himself reflecting on politics, loss, exile, the vicissitudes of human nature, and, ultimately, the meaning, or meaninglessness, of his own life.

A savvy, wildly imaginative narrative.