Decided to give this author another go after previously struggling to get into Vegabonds. The layout and themes of this book are very similar to the first, but I got into this a lot easier for some reason. An exploration of different characters worlds which sometimes is a little confusing, but draws attention to lots of important issues and the writing is really tender and poetic.

An entwined series of exploratory, emotionally charged, and gritty narratives exploring queer life in Nigeria.
The stories explore themes of faith, family, and social expectations with tenacity, coalescing into a deep discovery of each character’s true self - their very core - and the self they choose to present to the world.

I can’t say I was 100% sure who’s narrative it was for some of the chapters and I think in the end I think I read the book twice for clarity, which I’m not sure I actually got.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the opportunity to read this title.

🇳🇬 REVIEW 🇳🇬

Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde
Publishing Date: 31st July

Thanks to @netgalley and @4thestatebooks for the e-ARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

📝 - Across Lagos, one of Africa’s largest urban areas and one of the world’s most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast emerges: vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. These characters grapple with desire, fear, time, death, and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections; in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit.

💭 - A really unique book, and one I can see others enjoying even more than I did. Almost told in short stories, focusing on each character, their parents, their childhood and adolescence, before the stories find their way together. There were some storylines I loved, and felt very connected to, and some I found quite difficult to engage with - but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. With a heavy focus on creative outlets, something very far from my own experiences, there was always going to be a level of distance, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the way the stories came together to give a real mosaic picture of queer life in Nigeria, and especially the inter generational lens that was taken.

#necessaryfiction #eloghosaosunde #nigerianauthor #nigerianfiction #bookreview #bookstagram #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #bookstagrammer

An experimental and exploratory set of linked short stories with characters and viewpoints coming in and out of focus, doing the important job of exploring queer lives in Nigeria. It was fairly often a bit confusing, but then as a straight white cis woman in the UK I'm probably not its primary audience.

A series of interconnected stories exploring non-binary life in Nigeria. Taken together, the stories create a whole and coherent tapestry depicting tensions between younger Nigerians and their parents, between conservative religion and more tolerant faith, between societal expectations and yearnings of the heart and mind, and between binary and non-binary life. And yet, despite the tragic circumstances and struggles in the book the overall sense is that of hopefulness and positivity - the struggles are overcome and one can, after all, find happiness.

I absolutely loved the book. It is not an easy read - but that's because almost every sentence being imbued with purpose and meaning. I had to be more attentive than during most books I read, and the result is deeply rewarding. The echoes of the words remain with the reader long after one puts the book down.

More than anything, I was enchanted by the wholesome love the book was full of. It's a colourful and totally Nigerian celebration of love in all its shapes and forms, in its purest form. No judgement or criticism - just understanding and empathy towards human beings seeking acceptance and companionship. It is not just a book about romantic love - it equally celebrates love between friends and the joys of a chosen family in addition or instead of the biological one. This message is universal and timeless, making me relate to this book more than to most others I read in recent years.

Beyond this, the execution is nigh flawless - the characters are distinct and vibrant, each facing its own unique challenges, both due familial circumstances and those of personality. The pacing and rhythm are extraordinary and reel one in, even though the story doesn't really have anything "tense" per se.

I recommend to anyone - literally anyone. This is a must read. A joyful celebration.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Vagabonds! was one of the best queer novels of 2022 for me, and I was excited to read this new Osunde novel. Similar to Vagabonds! in both structure and content, Necessary Fiction introduces a large set of characters who are queer in the broadest sense of the word. This is its bane and boon, as it requires intense attention. On the other hand, it is also a necessary move to construct a particular ontopolitics of multiplicity that enables queer forms of life to thrive. In addition to the multitude of characters, the text itself has a particular Osunde vibrancy (as in Vagabonds!). I would even call it queer vitalism, which grants the characters life in naturecultures that are not always benevolent and are often constrictive. This is not always enjoyable, especially since Osunde works to create depth for the characters, which often lost me, but in those depths lies queer vitality that resists all attempts to diminish it.

Eloghosa Osunde is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and in their own words “worldbender”.
Their debut novel “Vagabonds!” appeared in a number of prize lists including the inaugural Waterstone’s Debut Fiction Prize and was effectively a linked collection of short stories and was described by the author in an interview as “A whirlwind wearing a gentle, colorful container. A spirit and a sustainable spell. A blazing testimony of grace and communal courage. A rebellion. A Holy Book.”.

Referring more (I think) to their visual art prints (which are “situated in the overlap between fiction, photography and painting” they says that the “work tests the limits of reality (who defines it? is it singular? does it matter?) by locating protagonists in intangible, alternate realms where the granular details of time and setting melt to a blur.” – some of which I think experience of this novel which again links what can seem at time like standalone stories some of which I think build on previously published short stories and weave the characters of those into a single story (not always I have to say with complete success – the joins in the tapestry being at times rather too obvious).

As an example the book opens with the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction winning “Good Boy” about a serial entrepreneur Ziz who runs a series of businesses – including supplying actors to churches to be spirit-slain, an underground kink-ordering service for VIPs, rather delightfully a worldwide souvenir shop (selling for example fridge magnets) designed for those who want to fake travel abroad and which has extended to assisting influencers to fake travel on their Insta-feeds. That story includes a number of his friends – one group that live in a throuple, another May who is a polyamory lesbian, his closest friend Maro (affected by the death of his father who himself had a longstanding open but never really acknowledged gay relationship with “Uncle H”) and a musician Akin.

A key theme of the novel – and one which gives it its title – is the need in Nigerian lifestyle for those with queer lifestyles to hide the truths of their feelings and even their lives

And many of these characters appear in a third chapter: Truth Circle – where a group (including most of those mentioned above but also some outsiders – in a later story its described as more of a business venture than a friendship group) meet to share their truths – in this case it seems what makes them angry (there is a later reference to a “rage club” and I am not sure if this is the same) – in what I have to say was not an easy chapter to follow as many of them talk in generalities and did not for me succeed at all in helping me as reader to really start to differentiate and know them.

Most of the novel is set in Lagos which one character describes as “a hunter’s jowl and a sharpdark shovel covering a scream in narrow daylight, a snatched organ in courteous dusk, the focused face of a machete unafraid of a drowning sun, a million thunders, a skinned sensation, a mad music”.

From there some chapters worked for me and other did not – often related to the amount of purchase I could gain on who was speaking and what was happening. I have to say that normally a novel which mixes person (first/second/third), switches narrative perspective (not always making it at all clear who is speaking), moves around in time – would be a challenge I would enjoy. However here I think two further aspects: the often-heavy use of Nigerian/Lagos cultural and other references and a queer sub-culture very different to my own life added a further two layers which sometimes defeated me.

I was able to appreciate a section (I think told by Ziz) about Maro’s father Tega and his death (seemingly by his own hand) if perhaps not entirely able to follow why it impacted the narrator so much – but not so much some of Maro’s section and particularly some featuring Akin’s music where the cultural references got tricky (although his backstory resonated better and I was also able to trace his being the throuple - with to other recurring characters Psalm and Asang). Similarly, May’s sections perhaps strayed too far into her queer lifestyle for me to really understand them.

What did work better for me – and was the book’s highlight - was the writing about Amele (daughter of rich parents – her mother the abusive and often ill Isoken) and Yesimi (daughter of a famous if notorious Nollywood actress and director) who meet and form a relationship at school, which is then exposed by a third girl causing Yesimi to break things off and flee to America. Each has a chapter – Amele as a young girl, Yesimi in America at and post college where she becomes a photographer – which is effectively told as if each age is a separate character. Amele stays in Nigeria and starts a blog; The Village Square – excerpts from which – and comments sections below are effectively included in the novel as two sections.

Another key theme which comes out explicitly in a passage – for me one of the strongest of the book - where Isoken (Awele’s mother) tries, at the request of a therapist she is seeing (about her reaction to Awele’s insistence on not hiding her sexuality whereas Isoken has for years hidden her feelings for and relationship with the sister of her husband – one which predates and even lead to her marriage as a cover) is of the generational differences in how much “masking” is needed – Isoken saying “Online – on Awele’s blog - their generation is busy saying there’s a name for people like you: homophobic! They love to name things, but that is their business. They think they are braver; they are just louder”
Towards the book’s end we learn some more of Tega’s lover Hasan and how their relationship developed in a relatively straightforward section which I found oddly placed – unless designed to pick up on the theme of Isoken’s letter (although we have known from the opening story what Tega was gay so I am not sure it really worked).

A near closing section which I think works well thematically – is about Ziz and Maro’s latest business “Under Construction” – based on Japan’s Rent-A-Family Industry but which extends it to a variety of ideas of actors provided for every need (examples given in a subsequent chapter).
I think this would have worked really well to end the book but instead it ends with Maro’s wedding – including for reasons unclear to me – lengthy and slightly odd vows, a present list and a soundtrack before a party at which Akin provides the soundtrack – another chapter largely lost on me before a strong ending as Awele starts drafting a possible new entry for her blog.

My thanks to 4th Estate and William Collins for an ARC via NetGalley