11/22/63: A Novel

The story: Given that the novel is so long, please pardon me for pasting the blurb and adding a few titbits afterwards. Here you go:

“November 22nd, 1963 was a rapid-fire sequence of indelible moments: Shots ring out; a president slumped over; a race to the Dallas hospital; an announcement, blood still fresh on the First Lady’s dress. But what if President John F. Kennedy didn’t have to die; if somehow his assassin could have been thwarted? For Maine schoolteacher Jake Epping, those hypothetical what if’s become real possibilities when he walks through a portal to the past. Without special skills and still unfamiliar with his new/old surroundings, he struggles to discover a way to change the history he left.”

Al, the propriety of the eponymous diner is dying of cancer. He calls Jake over when he realises his days are numbered and reveal the rabbit hole to him. Through this conduit, 35-year-old Jake returns to America in 1958 and luxuriates in ginger ale that was …”full. Tasty all the way through”. Jake’s entree in the past’s menu is served up by an essay that was written by one of his students, a man named Harry Dunning who has studied for his GED. Harry, who is old enough to be Jake’s father, had an assignment to write about a day that changed his life. He wrote about when his father went all Amityville on his mother and siblings with a sledge hammer when Harry was a boy in 1958. So off goes Jake, armed with a few supplies by Al and a few nuggets of information to save the Dunning family and return to 2011 to see what would change if he succeeded. His first attempt fails and so he returns to 1958 to try again. He succeeds this time. Homeboy has 5 years however, with which to while away time until JFK is assassinated. Or not if Jake has it Al’s was.

Jake is charmed by 1958 America but not all parts of it. He hates Dallas (where Oswald lives) so he moves to small-town Jodie where he falls in love with the local librarian, Sadie. She’s a smart one and realises something is askew with her new lover. His use of ‘dude’ and singing a Rolling Stone’s song about shagging drunk chicks or something along those lines gives the game away.

Anyho, he admits his otherworldly-ness to Sadie and in true Bonnie style, she goes along for the ride with her lover to ensure that JFK’s presidency remains uninterrupted. Jake succeeds in thwarting Oswald’s assassination but Sadie gets killed in the process. Mission accomplished and heart torn apart, Jake returns to 2011. It is Armaggedon – the world is a terrible, terrible wasteland. He happens to meet Harry Dunning who tells in him in so many words that Kennedy’s decisions in the white house caused this.

He promptly returns to 1958 to reset his actions; each time he goes down the rabbit-hole, the past resets itself. The novel ends with Jake finding 80-something-year-old Sadie who has no clue who he is. And how they danced.

Rewa’s take on things: If you this equation, King = Horror, resonates with you, you’re dead wrong. Ok, maybe dead  isn’t apt – you’re very wrong more like. Most people unfairly pigeon hole King into the Horror category but he delivers so much more than that. Mr King is a certified don. I had forgotten how much I liked his work until Amazon’s wonderful marketing machine churned the 11.23.63 recommendation my way. I finished this novel in 3 days (even with my 9-na-5) because I was that eager. King just has a way of captivating his audience; he certainly cast a magical spell on me.

 In 11.23.63, the premise of time travel rooted deep in sci-fi doesn’t appear far-fetched or ludicrous because King makes it so credible, so desirable. I found it refreshing that there was no faffing around; within the first 25 pages, Jake descends down the invisible steps in Al’s pantry and into 1958 Maine. The characters had depth; I like Jake Epping’s unobtrusive narration. Small, marked touches like Sadie’s unusual height (she’s 6 feet tall, 2 inches taller than yours truly – so jealous!!!) in a period where women were so dainty, made the story that much more real. Usually when authors give a key character the limelight, in a bid to make them memorable, they give them irritating habits (see Zuba in The Shadow Of A Smile for example) which detract from the story. None of this was evident in Jake Epping. It may sound strange but I felt that Epping was King’s Adam (created in his image and all that jazz). In the author’s afterthought, King confirms as much.  Lee Harvey Oswald was a worm and I HATE any man who raises his hand to a woman, no matter the circumstance (Chris Brown might still get it though ;-)). The subliminal prevalence of the jimla was another way that King kept my interest piqued – King could have easily used this to turn the novel into a cheap horror flick but he didn’t. The Yellow Card Man was also an interesting character I wish could have been explored in a bit more depth; we only understand his part in the bigger picture in a few pages. Who else wondered what would have happened had Jake given him a dollar instead of 50 cents?

And oh wasn’t 1958 lovely? Girls in long poodle skirts were lindy-hopping and jitterbugging with boys with crew cuts. Reading of Jake’s meanderings and interactions with the people of erstwhile days had a hazy, surreal feel to it, akin to viewing the world on an old reel. Simply magical. For a moment, history is in your hands and then you lose it again. A bit like a child who accidentally lets go of a balloon. Goodness, I’m such a pretentious, pseudo- literary arty-farty!

The sheer amount of effort and research King must have invested to construct this period piece is astounding and for that he deserves a Birkin. Hmm actually make that an IWC horology extravaganza (proceeds from this novel probably got him that anyway). In 11.23.63, King’s craftsmanship, like an IWC, is fine. He has you begging for more of the nostalgia that he engrains so well in his readers, you yearn for more pages on the world that is not here anymore. The minutia of Oswald and Marina’s decrepit lives add to the brevity of the story.

I wasn’t quite sure how King would end this one, how on earth would he go on to depict America if Kennedy had lived? I was a bit let-down with this denouement. I felt that the Armageddon, Chernobyl-esque America was rather farfetched and bombastic. Whilst still enjoyable, I was quite ready for the novel to end once Epping returned back to the 2010 for the last time and I give King credit for ending the novel when he did and the way he did. The slight, and I mean slight, let-down for me was the Jake-embraces-Jodie-life-and-falls-in-love-with-Sadie longueur.  

Whatever the novel’s flaws, it is a rich reading experience laden with pathos. One thing though, I’m very grateful for my Kindle because Lord knows I don’t have the muscular capacity to lug this tome around . Oh and if you didn’t hit google the minute you were done to search “JFK Assassination” “Lee Oswald Marina” and most importantly, “Jackie Kennedy Pink Chanel Suit”, you’re either a liar or a weirdo!

 

 

Pigeon English

The story: Meet Harry, an 11-year-old Ghanaian migrant who lives with his mother and sister in one of London’s rough inner-city council estates (Dell Farm Estate). At his school, Harri prides himself on being the fastest runner in Year 7 and appears to have settled his new life quite nicely despite the vast cultural differences. The story opens with Harri and his friend at the murder scene of a popular boy who once attended his school. He and his friend then take it upon themselves to go on a CSI-eque mission to find out who the killer is. Residing in Harri’s estate are the Dell Farm Crew, a sorry bunch of ragamuffins who go by the street names ok X-Fire (thats cross fire to you), Killa and some other irrelevants. Harri’s older sister, Lydia appears to have fallen in with them by proxy through Killa’s repulsive girlfriend, Myquita.

As the novel progresses, Helman makes it glaringly obvious who the killers are and I think for this reason, I found Harri’s naiveté extremely irritating!!! Harri’s brazen and innocent investigations continue to irk the “Dell Farm Crew” boys; he spies on them through binoculars, collects their fingerprints amongst other Inspector Gadget BS. The coup de grace comes on the last day of term, the day after Harri has had his sports day victory and shared a kiss with his girlfriend, Poppy. He is so elated that he begins to run home, on cloud nine, only for someone he recognises to bump into him and “chook” him. He lies in his own blood whilst speaking to his pigeon friend until his life escapes him. I forgot to mention The Pigeon. Yes, The Pigeon!!! Harri decides to make friends with a pigeon and leaves it titbits of food on his balcony, much to the annoyance of his mother. The novel is littered with excerpts from The Pigeon’s point of view (littered being the operative word).

Rewa’s take on things: When I first saw the title of the novel, I thought Helman had named it so because his characters would speak “pidgin English” as is the norm in many west African countries. There were only two Ghanaian slangs words, “hutious” and “Asweh” (you get to ABHOR this Asweh word by the end of the novel due to the sheer amount of repetition that Helman uses). Most of the time, we were given street slang like, “dope-fine” and “bo-styles”. I was bewildered.

There has been a lot of hype around this novel. What struck me about it is that Stephen is neither Ghanaian nor council-estate habitant, he is so far removed from either that I’m surprised he made these his focal point. Harri’s joie de vivre was very refreshing especially given that I’d just read about Zuba  (The Shadow Of A Smile) and Griffin (The Invisible Man). A lot of critics and readers revere this novel and I think that it is because they’re reluctant to criticize writings on a topic so sensitive as gang violence amongst demoralized youth  in an inner-city council estate. However, I believe that Stephen is a flawed writer but underscoring his fallibility is a cheap shot and an unsophisticated way of standing out from the crowd that seem to love this novel so much.

Harri’s impending “chooking” had been sign-posted throughout the entire novel – you just knew (well I knew) that it was going to happen. He was really tempting fate with the quintessential estate hooligans. What was interesting was viewing domestic abuse (his aunt Sonia and her Neanderthal of a boyfriend), bullying, sexual exploitation (Miquita – I retched some vomit into my mouth when she started kissing Harri and making him interact with her nether regions) and peripheral racism. It was interesting for two reasons. First one being that from a child’s point of view, one can easily get lost in how daily on-goings can affect their already impressionable outlook on life. However, Imy interest wasn’t piqued enough to explore these routes further. Second reason being that I don’t think I have ever come across such a naïve 11-year-old!!! I mean, come on, case of faux-naif if I ever did see one!!!!

Regarding The Pigeon’s POV; I neither enjoyed this nor thought it bore any relevance to the issue at hand. I don’t know what Helman was trying to achieve here but whatever it was, it was completely lost on yours truly! This pigeon was presented almost as an angel if you will. A pigeon. A friggin pigeon!!! It comes out with pretentious, prophetic statements such as, “they’re just meat looslely wrapped around a blazing star. We don’t mourn the wrapping once it’s discarded, we celebrate the freeing of the star”. It was neither poetic nor ink-worthy and detracted from the severity of the issues Helman was trying to draw attention to, especially coming from a filthy pigeon!

The only part of this novel that evoked any sort of emotion in me at all was when his mother said to his aunt Sonia that she’d brought her children over to UK so that they were given the opportunity to  reach places higher than she ever could. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this novel to anyone – it was a laudable effort on Helman’s part to try to shed light on a subject so sensitive and to try to get the reader to see that sometimes, these hoodlums are scared little boys hiding beneath their hoodies. I certainly remain unconvinced. And I still hate pigeons. And yes, they are still rats with wings.

 

 

 

The Shadow Of A Smile

The story: Meet Zuba, a young Biochemistry graduate with dreams of undertaking a PhD (told you Nigerians need 10 characters minimum after their surname). He has a huge “kee-loid” scar on his forhead due to an unfortunate accident eons ago which claimed the lives of his mother and younger brother. He is totally obsessed with this keloid of his, it  acts a conduit through which Zuba expresses his varying levels of stress through various means such as rubbing, stroking, fingering, you-get-the-picture. He also has a penchant for novels featuring other such scarred characters.

His father, Professor Maduekwe sets up a secondary school and welcomes into his employment, the devil and his advocate aka Mrs Egbetuyi and her husband. Professor Maduekwe falls ill and it is left to Zuba to take the reins and make sure daddy’s efforts aren’t in vain. A seemingly trivial series of events cause Zuba to order the dismissal of the fiendish Egbetuyis. They’re having none of it and demand a gargantuan payout if he wants them to leave the premises in peace. The principled Zuba refuses and Mr Ebgetuti swears to see to it that Zuba pays for this transgression. After this, things appear to spiral out of control. Zuba is arrested on trumped  up charges of armed robbery and manhandling of the Egbetuyis and goes from the police cell to a prison. The situation is dire. The conditions that the prisoners are forced to live in are beyond belief. Actually, they aren’t, this is Nigeria after all… Honestly though, I was horrified. Zuba is exonerated in the end and the Egbetuyis get their just deserts.

Rewa’s take on things: This review will be short because I found this novel moderately enjoyable. That I found it enjoyable at all was due to my partiality to African literature. It isn’t that there is something drastically wrong with Ozumba’s writing style, nothing particularly askew with the story etc. I think that for me, I found the protagonist incredibly lacklustre and spineless. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if the story had been focussed on Zuba’s less-privileged cohort, Ike. Oh well.

I believe the novel offered some insight into the judicial system in Nigeria, the despicable state of our prisons and the consequences of bribery and nepotism.

Towards the end, the story became increasingly farcical and I found the ending a bit of an anti-climax. Even though there was a build-up to Zuba’s eventual release, when it did come, I felt sort of deflated. It just seemed too sudden and easy. By the end of the novel, I had just about had it with Zuba’s keloid-stroking and thoughts-about-nothing-but-keloid. The descriptions and characters felt elementary and shallow; Kachi has a remarkable inability to explore more diverse similes and modes of communication. He relies on repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. Get the picture? Like, enough already *does American cheerleader voice*.

I believe at the heart of Ozumba’s novel was the take-home message of unfailing hope and triumph amidst unrelenting adversity. However, this bride did not make it past my threshold. If anything, having read about Zuba’s horrific experiences as a result of his insistence on holding on tight to the reigns of his high horse, I would be more inclined to let go of the proverbial reins and dabble in a bit of the system’s venality.

Actually, the only thing Ozumba achieved with this novel, was wasting half an hour of my lover’s life  with which he spent traipsing around the streets of London in search of this novel for me (kindle let me down you see). Half an hour that could have been better spent showering me with hugs and kisses *does Kanye shrug*.

While I must admit that this particular review of mine has been slap-dash, this was because I was so uninspired by the shallow characters and dull cadence of story-telling which both substantiate the low rating I have given this book.

The Invisible Man

The story: Told as a series events from an omnipresent narrator, we learn of the Invisible Man’s (Griffin)  arrival at the quiet, provincial village of Iping. Things start to go awry as the locals become increasingly curious about this strange dude who wraps his head up in bandages and wears reflective goggles. Eventually they discover that he is invisible and faeces hits those fan blades. He tries to escape, enlisting the help of a buffoon who runs away with Griffin’s money and indecipherable notebooks (which detailed the constructs of the invisibility potion). Griffin goes nuts and decides to establish a reign of terror amongst the villagers with the assistance of fellow ex-medic, Dr Kemp. Kemp does him greasy and blows the lid on Griffin’s evil plans. I forgot to mention that Griffin could do with a few anger management sessions and when he discovers what Kemp has done, he vows to kill him. He gets very close to enacting this vengeance but the villagers gang up on him and he gets killed with a shovel (if I remember correctly). How pleasant. Just in case you were wondering, he becomes visible again once his soul flees to fire-and-brimstone-land. The story ends with the tramp leering over Griffin’s three notebooks and dreaming of how he will eventually decipher it and earn a fortune. Not a chance.

Rewa’s take on things: A thoroughly enjoyable read. Having read this and War Of The Worlds, I am tempted to seek out more of Wells’s work. Griffin was a pain in the a*se and had such a sense of entitlement that one would have thought he was Drake (he’s so hot that he can demand whatever he pleases on any day ending with a “y” ;-).

If I was invisible for a day, here’s a list of things I’d do in order of importance:

1. Raid Laduree for macaroons – will need some fuel to feed the shopping frenzy I’ll inevitably embark on.
2. Next stop would be Aspinal to get that orgasmic pony-skin wheelie (in black). Have to lug all my accoutrements around somehow and a girl only has two hands and two elbows!
3. Then off to Hermes to get a couple more scarves and another Dogon togo leather wallet. Just because.
4. MARC JACOBS!!! He would get it! To get all the other bags that I don’t already own.
5. Hmm then being the generous, loving girlfriend that I am, I’d head to John Lobb to get the lover yet another pair of shoes and some crap from Albam. Actually, Albam isn’t dear enough to steal from, maybe the Mason Martin Margiela concession at Liberty then…
6. Commit arson at every Jane Norman store in sight. And L’Occitane too actually…
7. After all this, I’d pop over to UCL to beg my ex-professors to sort out all this invisibility mess! Haven hidden my loot of course!

So you see from my sensible list above, I thought the invisible man rather daft. I read the details of his comeuppance with a sense of Schadenfreude I must say.  In my opinion, had he been less of a troll to everyone, he’d have fared better! On a more serious note, it was sad that his whilst his albinism set him apart as a pariah, he fared no better being invisible which he thought would solve his problems.

There is no doubt that Wells is a master of sorts at science fiction, I found The Invisible Man and War Of The Worlds equally thrilling. With this novella, he took the near-absurd concept of invisibility and spun the crap out of it. I say near-absurd because some x-factor contestants are so irrelevant that they made as well be invisible *insert evil grin* I kid I kid!

In a nutshell, a short but very enjoyable read with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Say You’re One Of Them

The story: Akpan’s debut will be a bit difficult to describe as it is a collection of five novellas but I’ll do my best.

Ex-Mas Feast. Its that time of year when Santa finally puts Rudolph, Prancer and crew to good use. Needless to say he bypasses 8-year-old Jigana and his siblings in the most abject of slums in Kenya. So destitute is his family’s condition that his 12-year-old sister, Maisha, who is a v-jay-jay utilise, is considered to have the luck of the draw. After all, she gets to ride in her clients’ Jaguars and other such fancy cars. There is also the baby which the siblings use as a pass-the-parcel prop for begging. Their living conditions are horrendous to say the least. Their most prized possession is a bottle of glue which the children take in turns to sniff in order to stave off their hunger pangs. Maisha decides to leave the hovel in search of a better life and the story ends with her family pleading with her not to leave as she drags her meagre belongings into a taxi.

Fattening For Gabon. This was the most harrowing story of all in my opinion (but we’ll get to that later J). 11 year old Kotchikpa and his 5-year-old sister, Elewa are under the care of their uncle, Fofo Kpee. Their parents have AIDs and are no longer able to care for them. One day their uncle returns home with a shiny new motorbike – the children’ s joy is unbounded! Their uncle  tells them it was a gift from their parents back in the village, both of whom are recovering well. Pinocchio ain’t got nothing on Fofo Kpee. He also tells the children that they have godparents who will be alleviating their poverty-stricken lives and relocating them from Benin to Gabon in a matter of weeks.  True to form, these godparents come to pay them a visit, bringing good tidings and lots of food! From the beginning, you get a strong sense of foreboding which also begins to fester Kotchikpa as the novel progresses. Their uncle forces them to recite lines about their new family, feeds them more food in those pending weeks than they’ve probably ever received in their lifetime and conditions them to get used to sleeping in an airtight room (to prepare them for the passage on the ship). During this transition. Fofo Kpee begins to have a change of heart and realises he can no longer do this. The way Akpan describes his descent into depravity is brilliant! He then tries to run away with the children on the motorbike but he gets caught and beaten to death, literally. The children’s new captors keep them locked in the room whilst waiting for departure date to arrive. Kotchikpa hears a grave being buried for their uncle and realises he’s dead and the next day, manages to get the keys of the padlocked window from his uncle’s jacket. That fateful night, he unlocks the window, awakens his irritating little sister (admit it, she was!) and tries to push her out of the window to her freedom. A blast of air hits her face and she screams, alarming their sentinel outside who rushes in. Kotchikpa is able to make it out of the window in time, leaving us with the poignant final words, “I knew I could not outrun my sister’s screams”.

My Parent’s Bedroom. Based in Rwanda during the times of the civil war between the Hutus and the Tutsis, I imagined this story to be told from the point of view of one of the unfortunate children from the film, “Shooting Dogs”. A young girl of mixed Hutu and Tusti lineage watches her Dad use a machete to crack open her mother’s head because she is a Tutsi – never seen a more severe case of peer pressure in my life! Before the gruesome death, her mother tells her that if anyone asks of her tribal origins, “say you’re one of them”.

Luxurious Hearses. Dear old Naij is where this story is based. On one of the infamous “luxury” buses that cart the local people from state to state acts as a microcosm for Nigeria’s tribal turmoil. A young fundamentalist muslim named Jubril is trying to escape from the north (where his heritage caused his so-called friends to questions his dedication to Islam). He gets on one of these luxury buses where he pretends to be a Christian. This would be an easy feat except that homeboy has a strong Hausa accent and is missing his right hand as a result of a Sharia punishment. Also on the bus, you have a deranged ex-soldier, a pious Igbo chief, a Mother Theresa aspirant, some razz university girls to mention a few. In a nutshell, Jubril accidentally slips his right arm out of his pocket to the enlightenment of his fellow passengers who eject him from the bus and promptly send him on his way to his maker.

What Language Is That. a young Ethiopian, Christian girl is forbidden from speaking to her Muslim best friend. No, seriously.

Rewa’s take on things: People hail Ex-Mas Feast as the best story in the collection but my personal favourite, well not favourite because the content was gruesome, was Fattening For Gabon. I think the reason for this was that in all the stories, we know that the young people are destined for doom, they know it too but only in Fattening For Gabon were these young children given a false sense of hope, only for it to have it dashed. The way in which Akpan describes Kotchikpa’s joy and tears during his first ride on that damned motorbike, his joy at eating the bullet-ridden meat provided by his purported godparents, his eventual realisation of his planned demise is just stellar.

With Luxurious Hearses, I was keen to find out how Akpan would make Jubril’s fate pan out. From the onset, it was obvious to me at least that he’d never make it across, too many odds stacked against him to maintain his disguise. Say You’re One Of Them was just horrendous. I found myself constantly wishing the young girl would escape rape and death but just knowing she would encounter both on the war-torn streets of Rwanda. Best Friend was totally pointless.

In summary, don’t read this book if you live in an airy-fairy world where such things are un-heard of. Read this if you want an eye-opener into the plights of young lives faced with ethnic cleansing, civil, political and religious wars over which they have absolutely no control. Weirdly enough, I find that I’m unable to review this collection of stories as I have been the other novels. I think its because they’re just too true, if that makes sense. I cannot say they are good or bad because these are the children who are involved in the conflicts we read or hear about on the news every day but just dismiss because we don’t know who they are, we don’t know their names, their hopes, fears, dreams. But Akpan brings this to light in a way that is bitterly brilliant.  Heartbreaking, I believe, is an apt review of Say You’re One Of Them.

 Time to move on to something far more light-hearted!

I Do Not Come To You By Chance

The story: Kingsley, the opara, first-born son, struggles to provide for his beloved family. Their circumstances took a turn for the worse when his ailing father’s income began to dwindle and health failures saw him in hospital (conditions here may beggar belief but are reflective of the conditions that some endure in Nigeria). Their family’s fundamental beliefs have always been education, education, education (Nigerian’s love nothing more than a minimum of 9 letters after one’s name, you might as well go and play in traffic if you have a B.Sc. or drink a vat of rentokill if you have a B.A.). So dear Kingsley, owner of a brilliant Chemical Engineer mind (has to be medicine, law or engineering – nothing else will do!) but with no connections in the corrupt Nigerian job market is at a loss.

Inability to pay for their father’s medical bills leads Kingsley  into his notorious uncle, Boniface aka Cash Daddy’s snare. Cash Daddy is a CHARACTER. A silver-tongued rogue cum mastermind, a tyrant who barks out orders whilst taking a crap, possessor of astounding wisdom, incredible charm and unabashed naked exhibitionism. As Kingsley puts it, “He could probably even talk a spider into weaving silk socks for him.”

As Kingsley falls grudgingly under his Cash Daddy’s juju (upgrading his wardrobe in the process), he discovers his own innate flair for the art of deceit and his moral compass begins to rust. He plunges deeper into the intricate world of the Nigerian e-mail scam. The detailed exposition of the unbelievable methods used to string along Western suckers is fascinating and HILARIOUS. Honestly, who would take seriously, an email from “Wazobia” or “Osondi Owendi”? Pure class.

As the scams increase in incredulity and audacity, the novel begins to accomplish something more than simply poking fun at the lust and rapacity that make a small but lucrative fraction of Westerners susceptible to such scams.

 The characters don’t see their actions as immoral or wrong, such entrepreneurial endeavours are justified, afterall the same Westerners pillaged their land in innumerable ways. Also, these embezzled currencies are put to good use; what with funding orphanages, building schools and ensuring v-jay-jay utlisers are give their money’s worth.

Kingsley’s mother’s pious nagging and the unfortunate poisoning of Cash Daddy by his competitors sees Kingley changing his perspective and career choice. Taking the late Cash Daddy’s advice, he sets up his own telecommunications enterprise and Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.

Rewa’s take on things: This is easily one of my most memorable reads of the year. Where do I begin – it was hilarious, uncomplicated, enjoyable, well-written, full of Naija colloquialisms and the list goes on and on. And on. Its a like reading a Nollywood film if you can imagine such, while some things appear utterly unbelievable, this is Nigeria my friend and such occurences are commonplace!!!!

Maybe I’m biased but the local champion in me could so easily visualise the akara-seller, hear the sounds of the argumentative molue conductors and feel the conditioned air at Chocolat Royal.

The characters were incredible – quintessential Nigerians. Boniface aka Cash Daddy (imagine a Rick Ross lookalike but probably fatter and uglier) was the icing on the cake. He was the epitome of a avaricious, entrepreneurial, benevolent Nigerian.

Kingsley (What a fantastic choice of name – it doesn’t get more Igbo than that!) held his own as the morally upright nephew with the terrible dress sense. That is, a dress sense that doesn’t involve “yellow crocodile skin shoes with purple, red, blue stripes across the front”. The monikers that Nwaubani doles out to her characters are just pure class; Cash Daddy, Protocol Officer, World Bank and Pound Sterling – the-only currency-with-a-surname (Oh Yeah!!!). The source of Cash Daddy’s mass wealth, the fraudulent emails which so many of us dismiss by hitting the delete button are also wonderfully detailed in the novel. They are full of everyday naija spiel; the flattery, the charm, the deceit and even the subliminal insults.  

It was unfortunate that Cash Daddy met his demise in the end. Whilst he was a blatantly corrupt manners with no sense of etiquette whatsoever, he always ensured that his people were always well taken care of. He would have probably made a better governor than majority of the goons currently in power.

To be honest, I wasn’t reading this novel to highlight points for discussion around the corruption of a blessed-but-don’t-know-it Nation, the plight the developing world suffered in the hands of the West or any of that deep and intelligent stuff. I read this for the sheer entertainment and reminiscence of Nigeria that I wasn’t able to derive from the likes of Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives.

Nwaubani did an excellent job with her first novel and I thoroughly look forward to her next offering. You go girl *flexes neck and clicks finger in diva style*!

The Tiger’s Wife

The story: based in the Balkans, The Tiger’s Wife is told from the perspective of a young Serbian doctor, Natalia, a character I felt the novel could have done without.

It begins with her receiving news of the death of her grandfather, the news of his death, while earth-shattering, doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Natalia as she’d known for a while that he had cancer. It is rather the circumstances of his death that the novel follows. It courses through the history of the fictional village of Galina, where her grandfather lived as a young boy. We follow the narrative through to the advance of the escapee tiger to his village. He happens to know what a tiger is because of the pictures he’d seen in The Jungle Book – a novel that remains about his person for the rest of his life.

When sojourning from tales of the grandfather, Obreht tells us the background stories of the bear-man (his name alludes me, it isn’t important anyway), the butcher aka pseudo-musician aka wife batterer aka arschloch, the deaf-mute Muslim wife of arschloch, the alchemist and a few other unimportant characters.

You learn more of the grandfather’s life and how much he influenced Natalia with their ritual visits to the zoo amongst other things. With all the flashbacks, you also get a glimpse of Natalia’s current day activites; stuck on a farmland where a bunch of superstitious migrants are trying to uncover the body of a long-dead cousin whom they believe has placed a curse on them and other such niceties. Natalia’s life isn’t as interesting as her grandfathers. It really isn’t.

I’m a bit bored of relating the story back to you so I’ll go straight onto my opinion on the book…

Rewa’s take on things: I was really looking forward to reading this but I found my brain taking regular vacay’s. Normally I absolutely love novels that are entrenched in different cultures/eras (Janice Lee’s The Piano Teacher for example) that are beyond my living sphere but this did nothing for me. I wasn’t any more curious about sampling rakija than I was about eating cheese (one of the most disgusting accompaniments on earth – yuk!).

Natalia stirred no sentiments in me whatsoever – I found her bland and uninspiring. The child inside me was disappointed to find that she didn’t meet Gavo at the crossroads, I was hoping that she’s meet her demise then *evil laughter* or at least prove the deathless man’s existence. Gavo was the most fascinating character by far. I’d much rather have read about the grandfather’s life and encounters with Gavo through his own narative and not through Natalia’s. I also liked the deaf, mute Tiger’s Wife. She seemed to possess an inner strength that her sadomasochistic husband could never break. Why the alchemist poisoned her, I’ll never know and he deserved more than a quick hanging at the gallows. What a douche.

The story switching irritated me. I was so keen to move onto her grandfather’s dalliances with Gavo that I was frustrated to have to be held up by narratives on the Bear, the wife batterer, the Alchemist and other such irreleavants!

What I found especially poignant about the novel was the behaviour of the animals at the zoo during the war. Foxes eating their cubs, tigers eating their own body parts, ducks cracking open their own eggs to prevent the ducklings from entering this ugly world. It was very sad. But as my boyfriend says, I have a penchant for anything furry with four legs and big eyes J.

 I also liked the following of the tiger’s journey from the destroyed zoo to the comfort of the Tiger’s Wife, I felt that Obreht was trying to link this to the state of her country during the war but I can’t quite make the connection.

 Oh and by the way, the title, Tiger’s Wife, is allocated to the deaf-mute girl, the superstitious villagers thought she was indulging in bestiality because she and the tiger shared a bond.

On the whole, I got to learn a bit more about the Balkan wars and folklore (on which Gavo and a few other characters are based) but beyond that, I’d rather have spent the evening sampling cheese!