The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi – 256 pages
ARC from Riverhead Books and Netgalley for an honest review.
Book Blurb:
One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her son’s body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women married to Nigerian men. But Vivek’s closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. As their relationship deepens—and Osita struggles to understand Vivek’s escalating crisis—the mystery gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of exhilarating freedom.
My Review: 4.5 stars
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi will definitely be on my Best of 2020 Book List. This story starts with the ending and then reworks itself through many different time periods of his life. The title and the cover enticed me to request an ARC, so I got a win-win when the inside was as beautiful as the outside.
After the death of their son, Vivek’s parents begin to unspool his life, and in the process, learn how little they know him. Kavita, Vivek’s mother, is on a mission as to the how and why her son died. She begins to question, and question again, his friends and acquaintances to try and understand. Her pain leapt off the page.
Most of the characters in the book were Nigerwives (a non-Indian woman married to an Indian man) or the Nigerwive’s children. They had a very close-knit community so gossip could run rampant just as much as secrets could be kept closeted. Kavita wanted to unleash the secrets and dispel the gossip surrounding Vivek so she could learn the truth about his death.
The book has Vivek and his cousin Osita using the first person POV with well placed interspersed chapters that employ an omniscient POV. I do wish I heard more from Vivek so I could learn his truth. He was quite complex, though personally, I was hoping for more about his birth coinciding with his grandmother’s death and his mysterious blackouts. The book is full of symbolism.
So much of this plot revolves around sexual identity, love, grief, secrets and acceptance. These topics, most especially sexual identity, are becoming more rooted in the U.S., yet in Nigeria, they were a reason to hate, ostracize and harm.
There is no doubt that book clubs should be discussing this book. With so much to chew on and break apart, I’m sure this will bring on interesting discussion.
One thing for certain is that Akwaeke is (are) a brilliant writer. Her (their) ability to capture small moments and pair them with a feeling was amazingly well done. The message she (they) brought to the page was done with great profundity and feeling.
Note: There are some graphic sexual scenes.
Quotes I liked:
If nobody sees you, are you still there?”
“Alone is a feeling you can get used to, and it’s hard to believe in a better alternative.”
“Love and guilt sometimes taste the same, you know.”
“Osita wished, much later, that he’d told Vivek the truth then, that he was so beautiful he made the air around him dull.”
“I’m not what anyone thinks I am. I never was. I didn’t have the mouth to put it into words, to say what was wrong, to change the things I felt I needed to change. And every day it was difficult, walking around and knowing that people saw me one way, knowing that they were wrong, so completely wrong, that the real me was invisible to them. It didn’t even exist to them. So: If nobody sees you, are you still there?”
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