ONLY STARS KNOW THE MEANING OF SPACE

A story collection employing a variety of techniques and narrators to draw a picture of Namibian life.

Billed as a “literary mixtape,” the collection is divided into “A-Side” and “B-Side” tales. “A-Side” follows Rambo, a young artist working (or just as often not) on the writing he hopes will make him known beyond Windhoek, Namibia. As his twenties grind on, he endures a painful breakup and the death of his mother. “B-Side” contains more traditional short stories chronicling the lives of Windhoek’s homeless or, in the powerful “Important Terminology for Military-Age Males,” revealing the cruelty of a secret white South African unit in the Namibian War of Independence by defining the war’s key terms, A (apartheid) through Z (Zulu). Ngamije has a lot of fun, and success, with his unconventional structure. The collection’s most moving passage eulogizes the narrator’s mother using the form of a shopping list (“DISHWASHING LIQUID: Sunlight or Ajax—she diluted the green ooze in the bottle and made it last longer, the hallmark of an excellent drug dealer”). The B-Sides are more impressive as stories, while the A-Sides have the deftest wordplay, as witness this comment by the second-person narrator about his shopping habits post-breakup: “You shy away from the nursery where she adopted flora to fawn over.” However, the overarching narrative struggles to make the toxic behavior of 20-something men compelling. A cup of Junot Díaz has been used where just a pinch would have been appropriate (especially in the second-person sections), and male coarseness sometimes becomes literary tastelessness; one story has too many witticisms about domestic violence. But Ngamije’s deep attention to technique mostly impresses, even if this coming-of-age story has been told before.

The prose shines, but this serious talent deserves better subjects.