It’s no good keeping it all to yourself.

Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 342
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-992-91826-2
First Published: 26th August 2015
Date Reviewed: 22nd August 2016
Rating: 4/5

Miriam hasn’t left her house for three years. All her life she’s been dealing with the effects of her mother – first as it happened as a child, then the repercussions as an adult. She’s also suffering from a worry over her ‘feral’ reaction when someone attacked her. But now she wants to leave the house. Ralph’s been married to Sadie for sixteen years but it’s not a happy marriage; there is something amiss with Sadie and she’s always on her phone. One day, thrown a birthday party he doesn’t want to have, Ralph decides to leave.

Whispers Through A Megaphone is a witty book about healing and living life with its various neurotic aspects.

Jilly Perkins was a genius. Ralph wanted to tell her this, but she hated compliments. They filled her with wind and suspicion.

Elliot’s story is one that’s based in reality with a bit of a bizarre twist that one could say has been added in part to make it easier to relate to. Beyond Miriam’s stay in her house the narratives, numerous on occasion (Elliot details a few strangers every so often, all with their own quirks), and situations are easy to relate to and because of this the humour and skewing slightly towards the extreme mean the book remains light and nice to read instead of bogged down, depressing.

Because the subjects are depressing. The abuse Miriam experienced at the hands of her mother is painful to read and something that happens a lot in our world. It’s affected Miriam to her core; there’s a constant voice in her head that she recognises as her mother’s. Miriam whispers because her mother hated hearing her and threatened her with atrocious punishments. But she’s always been aware of what’s outside her mother’s clutches – in leaving the house and meeting people she knows it’s potentially going to take some getting used to. This is what happens when a child is abused, says Elliot.

Alongside healing, regret is one of the subjects. Ralph’s wife, Sadie, has spent their marriage pushing back memories of her time at university, at the almost-relationship she had with Alison, wishing she’d done things differently, and for lack of anywhere to go, her grief has spilled into all other aspects of her life. She blogs and tweets almost compulsively, telling everyone about what’s going on at home and including things about her husband whose patients (he became a Psychoanalyst to please Sadie, who didn’t like him gardening) are following her. She has developed a crush on her best friend who is already married. She is what people would call ‘high maintenance’ – Elliot shows there’s generally a reason for neurotic personalities. The family is very normal in their dysfunction.

The writing is nice; it’s short, snippy, always to the point. There’s a lot of white space during the many dialogues because the lines are often just a few words long. The pace speeds up during some narratives, Sadie’s, for example, and then back down for Miriam, but it’s never slow. There are some tweeted sections to give you a good idea of Sadie and a brief look-back at the lives of periphery characters. The only difficulty here is when the narrative moves back in time; it’s not always easy to tell what period you’re reading about. It can also be hard not to see Ralph and Sadie with heads of white hair though they’re said to be in their 30s.

This is a book that doesn’t necessarily go the way you think it will. It has an ending of sorts but it’s far more about the exploration. It’s quite clever really, this book that’s about the absolute everyday, looking into the smallest of smallest details – it’s an ‘ah ha’ sort of book, Elliot’s keen sight for what’s behind the surface and her way of interpreting it for us. She says what we often know deep down but have trouble connecting to other aspects of our lives.

Joe Schwartz was the first guest to arrive. He was early, nervous, drenched in aftershave.
Stanley answered the door.
“You look amazing,” said Joe.
“Thanks,” said Stanley, his nose twitching. He hoped he wasn’t allergic to Joe. It was too early in their relationship for hypersensitivity, aversion, turning into his parents.

Whispers Through A Megaphone shows that one shouldn’t be afraid to speak up, that it’s in keeping quiet that regrets are formed (obviously it’s a little different in the case of abuse). It’s a lovely book that uncovers a lot in a short period of time, wading into tough waters whilst remaining something you want to go back to.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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Well, not quite.

Publisher: Vintage (Random House)
Pages: 315
Type: Non-Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-099-59785-8
First Published: 4th June 2015
Date Reviewed: 27th April 2016
Rating: 4/5

O’Sullivan is a doctor of Neurology and her particular interest is in Psychosomatic Illness. Here she reccounts stories of patients, talks about the history of somatic illness – hysteria, neurasthenia – in a bid to bring more light onto a subject she feels isn’t taken seriously enough.

It’s All In Your Head is an unfortunately titled work that nevertheless pulls itself away from its cover to be something rather important and informative.

First things first – I’m no doctor. I can’t vouch for O’Sullivan’s research or anything like that, but I will say she deals with illness and disease objectively in most cases. Her book is well-written – it’s not dry and the pages turn swiftly; there’s a sense she wanted to bring an element of the style of fiction (not fiction itself, of course) to make the book more readable. It works.

O’Sullivan is on a mission to get Psychosomatic Illness taken more seriously and for the most part she does this with flying colours. Yes, there are many stories that are not concluded – presumably this is because she doesn’t always see patients a second time – but she does follow through when she can. The only thing is that many chapters supposedly based on one patient – chapters are named for the patient at hand – drift off to others.

This is very much a medical history book as much as one on modern day care. O’Sullivan gives a substantial amount of time, split up over the chapters – which means it never becomes too heavy – to detailing the progression of medical findings and beliefs. She details Hippocrates’ thoughts, those of Galen, and spends time on Charcot and Freud, who both went to lengths to work out what was going on. She speaks of the social thinking that weighed on prognoses, for example the ‘hysteria’ largely considered a female problem that was down to the female reproductive system and the way the uterus would move around the body (yes, they really thought that happened – where the organ could go without people having a moving deformity at times is anyone’s guess). This information may not really achieve anything as such, but it brings a bit of variety to an otherwise understandably repetitive work. (This said, O’Sullivan does literally repeat herself on occasion, and you’ll be wondering if you’re experiencing déjà vu or just don’t have the knowledge to note the specifics.)

O’Sullivan is objective and honest in regards to herself. She speaks openly of her youthful giggles when someone who said they couldn’t see showed signs that they could. She speaks of times she made the wrong decisions. And she goes very boldly into controversial territory, speaking out about CFS which she considers to be caused by psychological issues. This section may well put readers off, and she is very strong in her view with less source work than she otherwise uses. She knows her opinion is unpopular. And O’Sullivan’s conclusion is very firm – disabilities caused by Psychosomatic Illness should be on a par, culturally and socially, with physical disabilities caused organically (a ‘regular’ cause if you will – Cerebral Palsy, MS, paralysis due to an accident).

It’s All In Your Head talks about an important issue in medicine that needs more research. It details how someone can have a physical reaction to emotional trauma and that as such the trauma should be addressed rather than the patient laughed out of the room, but it does go a bit too far on occasion.

I received this book at the Wellcome Book Prize blogger’s brunch.

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Yes, it’s likely to fall apart.

Publisher: Cassava Republic
Pages: 339
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-911-11500-7
First Published: 20th May 2016
Date Reviewed: 2nd June 2016
Rating: 4.5/5

Grandmother Hajiya Binta and drug dealer Reza meet when Reza breaks into Binta’s house. He steals her jewellery and threatens to kill her but there is a moment between them; he returns in peace. The two begin an affair that must be hidden – not only is the age gap wide, in Binta’s culture it is shameful. As Binta hides the affair from her family and Reza tries to work out the conflict between his care for her and the murders he commits for others, we also see the trauma of Binta’s niece, Fa’iza, starting to slip through the cracks in the armour she created for herself when her father and brother were killed.

Season Of Crimson Blossoms is a book that looks at a fair few things, namely the emotions and sexuality of an older woman and the life of Reza; it also delves into corruption and religious conflict.

Ibrahim is one of those writers who writes the opposite gender really well and succeeds in giving life to the various ages of his characters. In many ways his book is about the effects of culture on women in conservative Northern Nigeria and it’s a well-rounded study. He looks at the effects of violence through memories. And it’s through Fa’iza’s story that Ibrahim’s talent sparkles for the first time.

When we hear about Fa’iza, beyond her liking for romantic novellas and film stars and television, it’s in the form of a flashback. In the space of a mere few pages, Ibrahim manages to provide the sort of shock most authors spend time leading up to – he shows us the reason Fa’iza can be quiet, the horror of what she experienced as a child. As men beat down the door to the family home, Fa’iza’s father has the family run to the bathroom where they stay cramped for some minutes before they are found. It is an incredible piece of writing, as stunning as if he’d been working on it for several chapters.

This is an unrelated moment to the one above, but it’s another, even more succinct, that shows Ibrahim’s skill:

He was there when the other boys spotted a girl in tight black trousers heading up the street. Her hair – permed in Michael Jackson Thriller style – streamed behind her as she swung her hips ostentatiously.
Then the chants started.
“Biri da wando!” the boys sang, running after her. Some ran ahead and pulled down their trousers and wiggled their little backsides before the embarrassed girl. The racket drew more boys from their houses and playfields and Yaro, too, was sucked in. Women in purdah came out and stood by the front door, trying to call back their sons, but their voices were drowned in the maelstrom.
Then the pelting started.
Missiles of damp mud struck the girl on her offending trousers, the imprint of dirt standing out starkly against the black of the nylon. She started crying, cowering and shielding her head from the missiles. The racket went up several decibels. Some women ran out and tried to dissuade the boys, but they were too many. In the excitement, they did not see Zubairu, who was not much taller than the biggest boys, until he reached out and grabbed his son. Like flustered bees, the boys scattered, dodging into neighbouring houses and running down slime-covered alleys. […] She poured in some damp guinea corn from the basin beside her and when she heard the flogging start, she began pounding. The harder the boy cried out, the harder Binta pounded, her pestle thumping heavily.

There is not too much of this type of scene; there doesn’t need to be – once you’ve read a few, with the narrative alluding to other situations, you’re all set, as it were, for the rest of the book.

Binta likes Reza because he reminds her of the son she lost. Reza likes Binta because her face reminds him of the mother who was never there for him, who left him, tore his hands from her hijab as she went to leave. Their relationship, as much as it’s sexual, is their way of grieving. Binta’s loss of her son, Yaro, is compounded by the fact culture forbid her from showing him, the oldest child, any affection. She always wished she could show him she cared because as an oldest child herself she’d experienced the same thing, knew what it was like to be neglected. And so her time with Reza, though sexual, could be seen as a penance, or a making up for what she didn’t do, spending time with someone who looks like Yaro who wouldn’t be far off his age. Whilst inappropriate socially, the relationship serves an innocent, important purpose.

At first appearing to be a case of a drug ring, Reza’s narrative expands to working for corrupt leaders. You see Reza’s conflict – on one side he’s assigned people to kill to help others get further on the board. Chess is alluded to. On the other side he has Binta spending time with him and nudging him to go back to school and gain an education. He’s always working on things Binta has no idea of; his oft-repeated ‘you understand?’ at the end of dialogues packs in different concepts: it’s the way he speaks, it’s a phrase with a lot of subtext behind it that differs every time, it’s the way Reza tries to signal warnings.

Ibrahim is very open about society, culture. This is what makes the character of Binta stand out – she’s taking a chance with Reza and is being led by her sexuality, talking of being free. Her relationship with her deceased husband was not a bad one per se, but she laments not having been able to enjoy their time together as a couple. She takes a chance in the name of sex, knowing she might be found out and worrying about it, but she’s led by her desire to be happy before she becomes too old. It would be shameful if she were found out.

The relationship between men and women and the differences between how they can live their lives are given time, too. Binta has a suitor but he’s never present in their conversations, always listening to his radio, preferring to talk about politics. The reality behind Binta’s daughter’s separation from her husband is revealed slowly – is she a bit over-the-top or is there something else? But at the end of the day, as much as it may be down to either or them, Hureira’s husband can take another wife.

I believe it was E Lockhart who said that a book should deliver a series of small shocks. Ibrahim’s novel is the best example of this idea I have ever read. Whilst it may not be a constant series of shocks – if it were you’d be at risk of becoming numb to it all – the 1-3 page horrors I spoke about earlier fit this perfectly. They’re short, small. They are a big shock due to Ibrahim’s ability to create such powerful scenes in such a short space of time.

Season Of Crimson Blossoms is a book to read slowly. Not because it’s boring or because you’re going through a patchy part but because you want to appreciate it, you want to think about what you are reading and you want to savour the writing; it’s a sort of close reading, only off the page. It’s really very good.

I received this book for review from FMCM Associates.

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Speaking to Abubakar Adam Ibrahim about The Whispering Trees, and Season Of Crimson Blossoms (spoilers included)

Please note: this episode includes discussion of sexual content, and the second reading includes a sex scene.

Charlie and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim discuss Nigeria at this time, publishing a novel on a very controversial subject and reactions to it, effects of grief, and looking at cultural expectations of women as the generations change.

If you’re unable to use the media player above, this page has various other options for listening.

Nothing is as it seems/everything is as it seems.

Publisher: Galley Beggar Press
Pages: 235
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-910-29647-9
First Published: 5th November 2015
Date Reviewed: 22nd April 2016
Rating: 4/5

Judge Daniel Paul Schreber can’t find his wife. She’s gone, and the cook doesn’t seem worried enough. On running outside, he sees his daughter returning home; she urges him to go back in, but he doesn’t, and when others find him they say they’ll take him to his Court. When he wakes up he’s in a sanatorium.

Playthings is a fiction book based on part of the life of a 19th to early 20th century German judge, diagnosed with paranoia Schizophrenia, who wrote a memoir in the hope it would allow him to leave the sanatorium he was living in. It’s a rather unique book that gives all its time to Schreber and what was going on in his mind, based on reports and the memoir, and is quite something.

Pheby throws you into the story without explaining anything, which has the effect of leaving you as confused as his character about what is going on. It’s a great beginning that enables the author to demonstrate Schizophrenia without description, without having to say anything about it, the ultimate of the concept of show rather than tell. And it carries on throughout, meaning that on one hand you understand what Schreber is going through – you’re in his head, via third person, after all – whilst simultaneously questioning everything. It’s the unreliable narrative at its extreme.

So you feel for this man from the get go because whilst you may not understand him at his core, you’ve been with him from the start and he is what you know. You sympathise with his confusion. There is seemingly no malice in him and so you’re comfortable in your discomfort and want him to prevail. That’s important to note, I think – you’ll feel at a loss at the start but you gradually get used to it and any hope you may have had that Pheby would give you a clear answer at some point fades away because you just don’t need it.

Unfortunately what the thrown-into-the-story factor also means is that you’ve no context in which to ‘get’ what’s going on. This book is Pheby’s fictional attempt to continue Schreber’s memoir, to give life to the times of illness that Schreber did not write about; the story reads very much as a continuation and so whilst you may be happy with that, you are just as likely to feel you lack the context, history, information, to truly appreciate it. There is information enough about Schreber online, and likely if you’re interested in the book you’ll have a basic idea anyway, but it does mean you can’t expect to pick this book up at random. It requires research in a way fiction often does not.

It’s worth doing your research. Not only does Pheby look deeply into the way mental illness was viewed and treated at the turn of the century, which is reason enough to read it, he looks at Schizophrenia itself meaning that albeit historical, there is a lot to learn about the illness from this book. He looks into the progression, at where Schreber’s Schizophrenia may have begun (there are a few opinions on this; Pheby’s opinion is of events in Schreber’s childhood and he looks to Schreber’s family’s dynamics for evidence, which are of course fictionalised somewhat here but the factual base is there), at how it affects a person, and by the excellently crafted confusion he includes, he shows how reality and fantasy can be mixed up.

In this book repetition is intentional. If you think you’ve already read that line, heard that simile, you have – one of the features of Schreber’s illness is that he will think he is somewhere and then later think he’s there again and so on. There are conflicts in this book that would be called devices in other books and that simply isn’t the case here – here it’s just truth and illness. Schreber goes on for a very long time about his wife, showing us in turn – once we’ve realised how much time has or has not passed – that his perception of time is rudimentary at best. And so yours will be too – are we on a memory of last week or moments ago or are we in the present? You must work it out.

That isn’t to say you have to be perfect at identifying everything; on this note each chapter starts with a sentence or two which details what the chapter is about – this helps you figure out your impression of events but doesn’t cure you of confusion, leaving out enough that you can draw a line between fantasy and reality but not to be let off the hook. Your job as the reader is to be in Schreber’s head. The sentences have the effect of making the book seem a bit theatrical in the literal sense and bring an additional atmosphere to it.

“There are things I do not allow myself to think of.”

There is a lot of tragedy in this book. Schreber’s father had a few accidents and as he had been very strict and into routine for his children – he’s rather akin to The Sound Of Music’s Captain von Trapp – this has a profound effect on the children and the working of the household in general. Schreber’s illness was characterised by the feeling that he must be good for God, and here, in this book, at least, we witness the emergence of one of the factors of this complete willingness to please – Schreber’s belief that God was turning him into a woman. It may not be obvious from the text of the novel, but this was not a transgender issue, rather an anxiety, a paranoia about what God wanted from him. Whilst at first confused, the character later takes comfort in pretending to be his mother, in assuming her role. He comes to believe he needs to be a woman to do what God wants.

Of Schreber’s father’s authoritarian manner of parenting, some people have used the term ‘psychological fascism’ to describe the way Schreber thinks – to describe the thoughts he has that you come to understand are the result of his father’s demeanour. It fits. There is no reasoning in himself; Schreber is his own dictator in many ways.

Of tragedy, and in terms of the above quotation, however, perhaps the most effecting part of the book occurs in the penultimate pages. We see the ultimate reason for Schreber and his wife’s adoption of a child, and of a girl at that, in a time when heirs were boys. You know the basics for a while but Pheby goes right to the heart of the matter, speaking plainly of multiple miscarriages and two stillbirths that caused the couple a lot of pain; in particular we see Schreber’s pain which given his illness is honest and could be considered graphic – not in a dirty way but in the way devastation can cause things that are understandable but are things we don’t like to talk about. If everything else is somewhere on the scale of confusion, then this episode is clear, transparent.

He sees himself shouting like a God to his stillborn children, animating them, but them refusing to move.

Playthings is a fantastic book. It boasts a particular individuality that’s not just in its subject matter but in its handling. It’s well written, clear in its confusion; it’s one you won’t forget any time soon. You do need to do your research, be awake so that you catch every detail, and willing to start and end in the midst of a longer tale, but make time for some preliminary reading and get to reading this book. You’ll know a lot more about many things by the time you’ve finished and there are a variety of reasons to enjoy it.

I received this book at the Wellcome Book Prize blogger’s brunch.

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Taking ‘do as I say’ to the extreme.

Publisher: One (Pushkin Press)
Pages: 293
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-957-54885-5
First Published: 11th February 2015 (in translation); 26th February 2015
Date Reviewed: 3rd March 2016
Rating: 3.5/5

Together with his four elder brothers, Ben starts going to the river to fish, secretly, because the town views the previously-worshipped waters with suspicion. The boys are caught by a neighbour, whipped by their father, but the real trouble with creeping out alone is yet to come. One day the madman Abulu, considered religious by some, happens upon the brothers and tells them that one will kill another.

The Fishermen is a book that incorporates folklore, old customs, and 1990s Nigerian social and religious culture into its tale of tragedy. A literary venture, it takes its time on one particular element, bolstered by a background of politics, fundamental Christianity, and the kind of child discipline we now call too much.

Dealing with the writing style first because it’s the first thing to make its mark, Obioma favours a detailed, sometimes overly-wordy, almost studious style that nevertheless has the power to wow on occasion. He likes ‘big’ words, beautiful sentences, and his young narrator, Ben, is just the right side of well-spoken rather than appearing too old for his years. Obioma narrates in a way similar to the spoken narration you often find in Victorian adaptations, films – that slow, wistful narration most common to women. There’s an oral tradition feel to it, poetic, storyteller. It could certainly be called too much – it’s one of those styles you’ll likely either love or hate. Obioma is entirely unapologetic; he wants a well-written book, old fashioned – understandably more 90s than nowadays – and he will have one. (You do have to remember the setting when considering the style, the time and the place.)

It’s not completely well-written but whether that’s down to Obioma or the editing process is hard to say. Certainly the myriad uses of ‘in’ instead of ‘on’, of ‘on’ instead of ‘at’ and so on, are at odds with the rest of the text, suggesting an oversight or perhaps a slight discord between our literature professor and the publisher’s editors. Whatever the reason, the constant misuse is distracting and means keeping your mind on the story is difficult.

There is a disconnect of sorts between Ben and the reader; where Obioma is so focused on the way he writes his tale – the words, the genres, the background – Ben, his brothers and other family are not so detailed. They are detailed – they’re not one-dimensional at all – but there’s no pressing reason, no feeling of the need to care, which is a problem when the story involves a lot of tragedy. And it’s hard to get to grips with the family – the way the father metes out punishment, the mother quick to manipulate and throw her children under the proverbial bus, are perhaps more difficult to read than the author hoped.

Not much goes on in the book – this sounds too ironic to be true so I’ll explain: the book is a series of tragic events with some politics in the background, but not much beyond that. This isn’t a failing in itself, many books are similar, it just means that The Fishermen is more about the sum than the parts. The book is not as interesting to read as it is to contemplate after the fact, when you’re able to put everything together and see that Obioma’s goal has been to provide an overall meaning, a message, even.

Superstition or prophecy? Obioma presents the possibility of both and asks you to form your own conclusion. What was it that made things happen as they did and can and should religious ideas take precedent? Obioma looks at the psychological factors ruling his characters’ choices, the way one thing said by a person considered mad has a knock-on effect. And as much as the characters are Christian, the author shows that mythology and old ways can still creep into life, that we can move on to new ideas but those old ones will remain ingrained for a time.

A note on one of the tragedies – this book deals with under-age crime in a way that may make you uncomfortable. This is actually a reason to read it rather than not because it opens you to the situation and says more by its inclusion than Obioma could say without it – more than he could say just in words. It’s viewed through a similar lens as the rest of the book: it happens, whether it’s right or wrong is irrelevant here.

Overall, then, The Fishermen is a good book, but doesn’t quite keep the promise of the first pages. It does make for some interesting contemplation but the contemplation is fairly short-lived. Take it as a look at 90s Nigeria, its politics and its culture and society and you’ll be best off.

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