Ghostroots

April 1, 2024

DEBUT In this debut collection, Aguda, winner of the O. Henry Prize for short fiction, makes her home city of Lagos the star, bringing the place and its inhabitants to life. The 12 thought-provoking speculative stories, featuring mostly women protagonists, a strong narrative voice, and a focus on the unsettling results of generational divides, lay bare the universal human experience, illuminating the menace that constantly lurks just below the surface. The first story, "Manifest," follows a young woman who might be possessed by the ghost of her grandmother, superbly setting the uncanny tone that defines the entire volume. Other standouts include "The Hollow," in which an architect attempts to renovate a house that holds generations of secrets in its walls; "24, Alhaji Williams Street," where a fever is killing each youngest son on a single street, one address at a time; and "Birdwoman," a tale that is as upsetting as it is beautiful. VERDICT Aguda's excellent story collection deserves a wide audience. With a breadth similar to the critically acclaimed Jackal, Jackal by Tobi Ogundiran, this will also appeal to readers of Eugen Bacon, Lisa Tuttle, and Karen Russell.

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April 15, 2024
Ghosts appear in many unexpected forms in the supernatural landscape of Lagos. Nigerian writer Aguda opens her debut collection with "Manifest," the tale of a relationship that becomes contentious when a woman recognizes her own mother in her daughter's face. Many of the book's ghosts are passed down through maternal lineages, and it seems that hauntings are reserved mostly for women. In "Breastmilk," Aduke is more haunted by her mother's fighting legacy--one she has betrayed by forgiving her husband Timi's infidelity so easily--than she is by Timi's betrayal. "Imagine Me Carrying You" follows another mother-daughter pair; the mother, haunted by a tragic car accident, becomes a listless and aggressive shell of a person her daughter must pause her own life to attend to. In "Girlie," a daughter whose mother has sent her away to work must confront the ghost of her mother's love after being kidnapped by the woman she buys tomatoes from at the market, while "The Wonders of the World" finds young Abisola on an extended school trip, where the intervention of her strange classmate Zeme finally helps her feel sure of her parents' love. The stories that center the cowardice of male characters produce some of the book's most delightful twists and strongest narrative structures. In one of the most notable stories, "The Hollow," an architect named Arit visits the home of Madam Oni, a client, to find it constantly transformed by the abusive spirits of Madam's son, husband, and father-in-law. In "Things Boys Do," the lives of three different men converge when they discover they are connected through a tragic childhood incident. The collection builds slowly, finding its emotional stride in the second half, when the characters' interiorities are more developed and complex. The setting of mythical Lagos also shimmers more energetically in the collection's later stories. A satisfying slow build featuring haunted family relationships.

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August 12, 2024
In this bracing speculative parable from Phillips (The Need), set in a near future devastated by climate change, a woman loses her job to the robots she helped build. The “hums,” as the AI bots are called, have become ubiquitous in every corner of society, rendering May Webb and her equally unemployable husband, Jem, increasingly desperate. As a result, May volunteers for a face-altering experiment, one that makes her identity undetectable to camera phones and security clearances. After the procedure, she takes her family to their unnamed city’s exotic botanical garden to spend three nights in a cottage, where lakes, forests, and streams still exist. She also forbids the children from using the devices they’ve grown reliant on, hoping for a brief respite from the selfies and hums flooding their feeds. During their stay, though, they’re surveilled by the hums, which capture May briefly losing track of the children in the park. When the family returns home, May discovers she has been canceled and may lose her children for good if the hums deem her guilty of negligence. This chilling vision of a near future, one where its dwellers “can’t avoid the void,” resonates unnervingly with the way things already are. Readers won’t be able to look away. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group.

August 12, 2024
Nigerian writer Aguda debuts with a skillful collection about characters tormented by betrayal, regret, and spirits of the dead. In “Manifest,” written in the second person, the narrator’s mother calls her by her maternal grandmother’s name, Agnes. As the narrator loses touch with reality, the story builds to a chilling conclusion: “In the mirror, you do not recognize yourself.” The narrator of “Imagine Me Carrying You” observes her mother’s unsettling preoccupation with the memory of accidentally hitting and killing a young woman with her car: “She rocked herself back and forth and made sounds that reminded me of a horror movie.” In “Breastmilk,” a young mother’s milk is slow to arrive as she grieves over her husband’s infidelity. The evocative closer, “Masquerade Season,” portrays a boy who encounters three men wearing the traditional beads and feathers of Igbo masquerades, though there’s no festival happening, and the men follow him home and join his life. Some entries are underbaked, such as “Birdwoman,” in which a woman’s encounter with a magician leads to her ability to fly. Overall, though, Nigerian myth and reality harmoniously come together in these meticulously constructed tales. These vivid slices of life are worth a look.