Book of the Month October 2024
Quizlit’s Book of the Month October 2024 is the scintillating debut short story collection Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda.
Book of the Month October 2024
Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda
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 daughter’s 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 mother’s 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 that’s 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.
Wildly inventive and odd, but written with surgeonlike precision, these stories herald the arrival of a major voice in speculative fiction. Gabino Iglesias, New York Times Book Review
[A] mesmerizing and unsettling debut collection… Aguda is a precise and exciting prose stylist, and her stories offer vivid insights into tradition, family, and trauma… [A] smart, playful, and compassionate collection worthy of repeated reads. Isle McElroy, New York Magazine
Aguda stirs her cauldron of social criticism, feminism, structural invention and grotesque gothic twists into a triumph of genre-bending storytelling, a kind of African uncanny all of her own. Christian House, Financial Times
Spectacular…. ‘Pemi Aguda reimagines Lagos, Nigeria’s everyday rhythms with a supernatural essence, much like Bora Chung or Mariana Enríquez’ uncanny voices. Sam Franzini, Our Culture
“’Pemi Aguda’s Ghostroots is a triumph! The author’s strong storytelling skills give readers the gift of realistic characters and darkly imaginative stories that creep under your skin and stay buried there. Disturbing, enthralling and unforgettable. This author is now among my favorites.” Tananarive Due, author of The Reformatory
’Pemi Aguda is an MFA graduate from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her writing has been published in Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and other publications, and has been awarded the O. Henry Prize for short fiction. She is from Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
If you enjoyed Book of the Month October 2024 check out 5 Sensational New Books for October 2024
