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Ghostroots: Stories
Ghostroots: Stories | 'Pemi Aguda
3 posts | 2 read | 6 to read
A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties. In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before. In Manifest, a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughters face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In Breastmilk, a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mothers feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In Things Boys Do, a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in 24, Alhaji Williams Street, a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease thats killing the boys on his street. These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent.
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TheKidUpstairs
Ghostroots: Stories | 'Pemi Aguda
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Pickpick

When the National Book Awards shortlist was announced, this was one of two on the fiction list I had not yet read, and the only one I hadn't heard of. It also happened to be available right away on Libby. I was hooked from the first.
Short stories of the eerie, unsettling, and sometimes horrific, set in Lagos, Nigeria. Aguda knows how to ensnare with just a few short sentences, how to skew the everyday just enough to shift reality... cont'd

TheKidUpstairs ...and how to play cultural mythologies and modern urbanity off each other with engrossing, disquieting results.

It is a great October read for those who prefer their horror of the quietly unsettling variety, rather than the bloody, gruesome jump scare style.

Rare for a book of short stories, I did not feel there was a weak link in this collection. But particular highlights for me were The Hollow and Birdwoman.
4w
sarahbarnes Wow, great review! 4w
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TheKidUpstairs
Ghostroots: Stories | 'Pemi Aguda
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“A long time ago, there was a woman who lived elsewhere in the city. What is a house - this woman wondered, as her husband dragged her body, like a mop, over faded linoleum floors - but a pressure cooker, a vent pipe screaming steam?“

I'm really into this collection so far - full of arresting, unsettling imagery. And I just love this cover!

Sace Stacked! 1mo
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Hooked_on_books
Ghostroots: Stories | 'Pemi Aguda
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Pickpick

This collection of stories set in Nigeria gives a flavor of place and culture. There are magical realism elements in most of the stories, which I wish had been carried all the way through, as they‘re very effective. Good collection.

NBA longlist, fiction

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 1mo
36 likes1 comment