Saturday, July 7, 2018

What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky

About three years ago, I read Anne Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, followed by the entirety of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, followed by her Wayward Children books. About halfway through this exercise, I realized that it had been some time since I'd read a female author, and that it was something I really missed. I followed this up by reading Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, during which I picked up a few other books by lady authors including, at the recommendation of Levar Burton's fantastic podcast, Lesley Nneka Arimah's "What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky."

It's a pretty short book, with 12 stories, averaging about 20 pages each, and I read it ... well, today. This Saturday. I started in the morning and finished it up as the chicken breasts I'd prepared for dinner slowly smoked in the Weber grill. One of the best compliments I can give this books is that it distracted me such that the smaller of the breasts dried out a bit, and I had to butterfly the largest of them as I didn't move them in and out of hotzones as I should have.

These aren't stories by a woman writer. These aren't stories by an African-American writer. These are stories by a woman who's an ex-pat Nigerian, and not from one of the better times in Nigeria's history. These pages bleed a particular culture, a specific period and time, and a particular set of characters. In the hands of a lesser author, 12 stories with these limitations could feel stale and unlived-in, but LNA is not a lesser author.

Her characters feel real, even when she's writing magical realism or straight-up afro-futurism. I honestly think that my favourite tale is "What Is A Volcano?", which has one human character. The rest of mythological characters, acting out a tale that resonates in a way that feels like it could've been told by grandmothers to their granddaughters for millennia.

So, what are the themes? Women and families, mostly, and especially how the latter screw-up the former. There are a lot of damaged women in these pages, and people who don't feel comfortable with stories of abuse - emotional, verbal or physical - should read this book with that in mind. I recommend this book to everyone else, though, and I do mean everyone.

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