“Nine blazing stories about the joys and tribulations of queer love in contemporary Nigeria.” god’s children are little broken things
destroy a large Atlanta cryo facility and its contents, effectively committing genocide, so the Resurrectionists woke Alabine to help sway public opinion. Alabine protests—until the rebels disclose that Max is also frozen, and they plan to liberate and resuscitate him, as well. Howes thoughtfully extrapolates from current events to create a chilling, all-too-plausible future. Vividly sketched, deeply sympathetic characters and high-stakes, adrenaline-fueled plotting propel the tale to a cathartic close. Intelligent, action-packed, and emotionally charged.
GOD’S CHILDREN ARE LITTLE BROKEN THINGS
Ifeakandu, Arinze A Public Space Books (224 pp.) $16.95 paper | June 7, 2022 978-1-7345907-1-5
THE FAMILY REMAINS
Jewell, Lisa Atria (384 pp.) $25.20 | Aug. 9, 2022 978-1-9821-7889-5
In this sequel to The Family Upstairs (2019), two siblings continue to deal with the fallout of their traumatic childhoods. Lucy Lamb is living with her brother, Henry, after the two have been reunited, and she’s focused on reconnecting with her eldest daughter, Libby, and building a more stable life for her younger kids. But when Libby locates her birth father, Phin Thomsen, who lived as a teenager with Lucy and Henry—all
y o u n g a d u lt
Nine blazing stories about the joys and tribulations of queer love in contemporary Nigeria. The stories of Ifeakandu’s debut collection are nothing less than breathtaking and daring, each exploring queer relationships in all their nuanced and unpredictable configurations: secret romances, brief but passionate encounters, relationships that are tested by cultural pressures. At the centers of these carefully constructed stories are queer men whose identities and romances are constantly ruptured by political turmoil and by stratified social and cultural ideas of masculinity. What, these characters ask themselves, makes a man? How to reconcile the tension between one’s interior self—one’s burning hopes and desires—and the expectations that family and tradition have foisted on him? The opening story, “The Dreamer’s Litany,” examines the relationship between Auwal, a small-business owner, and Chief, a wealthy and flamboyant man who promises to help Auwal with his business for a price; the two men develop a sexual relationship, though Auwal is not convinced he can really trust Chief and his wife begins to suspect there’s something taking place between them. “Where the Heart Sleeps” is a moving tale of Nonye, a young woman returning to her father’s house for his funeral. There, she gradually opens up to Tochukwu, her father’s partner, whom she has resented for taking her father from her mother and her. The title story follows the romance of Lotanna and Kamsi, two college boys who must constantly renegotiate their commitments to each other as family and social pressure threaten to pry them apart. In “What the Singers Say About Love,” a young musician’s ascent into the public eye requires that he subdue major pieces of himself and pull away from the man he loves. Using a variety of forms, including stories broken up into numbered sections and stories employing first-, second-, and third-person narrators, many of these tales bear the emotional weight and complexity of novels, with the reader pulled forward by lucid prose and excellent pacing. Most compelling, though, are the unforgettable characters and the relationships that hurl them into the unknown and dangerous depths of their desires.
Deftly capturing the richness and dangers of romantic connection, these stories complicate and reimagine queer narratives.
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kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 june 2022
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21
