The first story in this collection, “Cell One”, is set solely in Nigeria, time not given but likely in the last 20 years.  I read this as part of December’s A Season of Stories and it is unforgettable.

As in most of the other stories, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells Cell One through the eyes of a young woman, sister to trouble-making Nnamabia, the brother her parents favor and cosset.  Both young people attend a Nigerian university that is frequently beset by violence as cults (gangs) of young men attack each other, often resulting in murder.  The police arrest and jail Nnamabia after a fatal attack and his sister and parents visit him in jail every day via a 2 hour drive.

“Cell One” reaches its emotional height by how matter of fact the sister narrates the events, from shake downs by the highway police to shake downs and bribes in the jail to the endless beatings and humiliation.  The brother tries to spare the life and dignity of an older man who is imprisoned because the authorities cannot find his son; the guards beat this older man daily and the brother risks his own life to try and stop it. We do not know what happens after, whether the brother grows up after this or slides back to being the favored child who gets away with stealing from his own mother.

That Thing Around Your Neck includes several stories set in both America and Nigeria.  One of my favorites is “Imitation”, about a Nigerian wife, Nkem, whose husband is a Big Man back home.  He moved her and their children to America while he spends 50 weeks a year back home.  When the wife discovers he is bringing his mistress to their home in Lagos she decides to move everyone back to Nigeria, standing up to her husband for the first time ever.  I enjoyed the character Nkem and her combination of realistic expectations (of course her husband strays) with determination to have a real marriage and family life.

Several stories showed how both Americans and Nigerians may have nutty ideas about each other, making overly sweeping generalizations about behavior and culture.  One example was “Jumping Monkey Hill” where Edward, the literature seminar leader gently refuses to believe one author’s work is truly African, stating “how African is it for a person to tell her family that she is homosexual?”.  In “The Arrangers of Marriage” the new husband seeks a lighter-skinned Nigerian wife, then has her use only her middle name, Agatha, and tries to turn her into an American, cooking American food, speaking American English.

Many of Adichie’s characters are away from home, are lonely, horribly lonely even when surrounded by people or married.  The stories are good because we connect with the people.  Adichie uses the short story form well, focusing on people’s feelings, their fears and longing, telling stories with small plots and big characters.

5 Stars

Have you ever asked someone to write a letter of recommendation?  Maybe a favorite teacher or neighbor when you wanted a job or a scholarship?  Have you ever wondered just what they said about you?

Wonder no more.  Instead read Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher.  The author tells the story of Jay Fitger, Professor of English at a small college in his own words, via letters of recommendation, complaints to the HR department, emails to his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, letters to friends.

Professor Fitger has much to complain about.  His English department faces severe budget cuts, whacking the English graduate program, living in 3rd rate offices, with a department head borrowed from Sociology.  Fitger wants his current students to survive and thrive and worries about one in particular, Darren Browles.

Mr. Browles wrote a novel, or at least part of a novel, we aren’t really sure.  Although Browles never appears in the book, Fitger writes letter after letter – to his former friends, his ex-wife, his publisher, his agent – in short anyone he can think of who might bring this pseudo-masterpiece to print, or if nothing else, provide Browles with a few bucks.

Meanwhile Fitger’s other students are moving into corporate jobs or temporary work at liquor stores and trailer parks, going on to grad school, selling novels.  We see them all.  Only Browles remains, left behind, unwanted.

Characterization

Professor Fitger is the star of course and we learn much about him.  He’s in his mid/late 40s, balding, a bit fussy, a bit bitter, sarcastic, with distant memories of being just a bit more radical, a bit more successful.  He’s also lonely and prone to sabotage himself and any relationships.

He writes his letters with as much honesty and kindness as the student deserves.  One girl was desperate for a letter and her advisor was gone so she turned to Fitger whom she had seen around campus – after all he was in the building and almost no one else was.  Fitger wrote a charming letter, praising the student’s enterprise and determination while accurately describing how he was roped into writing the recommendation.

The book is full of funny comments like these, interspersed with heartfelt pleas to help Browles and to his ex-wife and girlfriend to please like him again.  We don’t see Fitger in his home, only his office, while he reminiscenses about his mistakes, how he included too much reality in his one successful novel, so much that his wife could not tell what parts were fiction and dumped him.  He remains on good terms with people right until he can’t help but do something to sabotage the friendship, for example, copying the entire university staff on an email to his girlfriend.

The setting is mostly inside Fitger’s mind with sharp descriptions of the falling-down academic building with its non-working plumbing.  We get a glimpse of cutthroat academic life where all new hires are non-tenure track adjuncts who live on air, pennies and dreams.  Fitger remembers it didn’t use to be like that and it drives him to write scathing letters to the dean.

I think I would like Fitger in small doses, preferably with a glass of wine.

Summary

Dear Committee Members is funny, poignant.  I recommend it to you without reservation!

5 Stars

Home, by Matt Dunn, is one of those perfectly decent books that just misses.  This may be me and my tastes instead of the book itself as I was unable to get past the first couple pages of another book by Mr. Dunn, The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook.  I probably wouldn’t have finished Home either, except it came from Net Galley for a review.

There is nothing wrong with Home.  The writing is decent, main characters are well-done, setting is interesting, and the plot uses a universal conflict.

The primary story concerns Josh, who left the sad seaside town of Derton at 18 to pursue college and dreams of writing, plus his parents, his best friend, his former and almost-former girlfriends and his old high school nemesis.  Josh’s dad is dying of lung cancer and Josh has left London to come home, fully intending to stay a week or so then return to the bright lights and his advertising job.

While in Derton Josh breaks up with his current girl friend (we all cheer at this point), he loses his job, finds the girl he dumped at 18, realizes he should have stayed with her.  Eventually it works out but the process is a bit tedious.

Josh doesn’t believe in anything except that he doesn’t want to live in Derton.  That has driven him for 18 years, but a desire to flee is not a desire to live, and being against something doesn’t tell you what you are for.  He doesn’t like the superficial glitter that his girlfriend and boss embody (best line in the book describes his girlfriend’s closet as a “shrine to Jimmy Choo”), but he doesn’t know what to replace it with.

Josh stumbles around the emotional minefield of his dad’s illness and death, his fears and loneliness.  It takes him the full novel to do what we readers on page 3 see is the right course.

Overall I’d give this a solid 3 stars but don’t read it if you don’t like books where people are their own worst enemies.