A collection offers an evocative and insightful—though far from positive—view of humanity.
A short story collection explores the lives of Nigerian men and women.
In this volume, Akinyemi takes readers into the minds and inner lives of Nigerians, particularly men, at home and abroad. In “Black Lives Matter,” a soccer player channels both grief and ambition into success in a European league only to find himself confronting racism. “In the Trap of Seers” has a female protagonist, a woman whose mother drags her to one spiritual guru after another. In “Inferno of Silence,” Kunle endures his wife’s abuse, which challenges the cultural assumption that husbands are dominant. Another failing marriage is the focus of “Blinded by Silence,” in which a woman determined to avoid her parents’ fate ends up following in their footsteps. The stories explore questions of masculinity, family, and identity, and the characters reveal the variety of experiences in contemporary Nigeria, from traditional villages to college campuses to skyscraper-dwelling tech companies. Akinyemi employs a distinctive and evocative prose style (“His dirty linens were not just washed in public, they were sun-dried and left for the whole-world to cast derisory glances at”) that leaves readers with a clear image of the people and places he describes. But readers accustomed to standard American English may find the writing awkward at times (for instance, a character is referred to as “the Chinese”). The characters can be insufferable (“I had the chance to showcase my exceptional talent to the entire world”), but they are generally satisfying in the context of their tales. The players’ complexity and diversity of backgrounds and experiences provide a layered and nuanced look—if, perhaps, a jaded one—at the lives of an assortment of Nigerians. While a few of the stories end on relatively upbeat notes, with characters overcoming obstacles and moving beyond troubled pasts, the collection as a whole seems intent on showing how determined people are to cause problems for themselves and others. The book is not necessarily an uplifting read, but it is an engaging one, with an eye for vivid details and human shortcomings.
A collection offers an evocative and insightful—though far from positive—view of humanity.Pub Date: May 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-913636-02-9
Page Count: 214
Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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