And After Many Days, Jowhor Ile

Gin Jenny — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 10:00:19 +0000

One day, Ajie’s older brother Paul leaves their home in Nigeria, and he never comes back. Ajie was the only one who saw him go. And After Many Days is about the loss of Paul and his presence in their family before he goes. I was reading it in between other things (you’ll be hearing about The Raven King on Monday) that frankly I cared about more, and nevertheless I thought And After Many Days was awfully good. It tells the story of a 1990s Nigerian family in a way that makes a faraway (from me) country in an increasingly faraway time feel present and vital and familiar.

If you’re (like me) always on the hunt for more African authors, I’d definitely recommend And After Many Days.

And now onward to a serious question on which I want your input. Why are there so many books in this world about missing siblings? Is this a case of art reflecting life and there are people all over the globe wandering about hoping to run into their missing sibling sometime again? Or (this is what I suspect the real answer is) do a whole bunch of people have super-fraught relationships with their siblings, and some of them are writers, and this is how they are dealing with it?

Actually, even if that’s the case, it still can’t be the whole answer. Nobody ever writes a book about missing parents, and God knows authors of the world have complicated parental relationships.¹ Is it because we feel a responsibility to our siblings that we don’t to our parents? Or? Or what?

FATHER WOUNDS. Come hang out with me and my family for a bit and take a drink every time someone makes a father wounds joke. Except, don’t do that, it’ll be bad for your liver. ↩

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It’s Monday, April 25th. What Are You Reading?

Gin Jenny — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:53:10 +0000

It’s Monday, and I had a smashing weekend! A good friend came to town so we got to break bread (and have some drinks) together and shoot the shit on Saturday. The bookstore had a surprise for me which I will share with you in a moment, although if you know me well or follow me on Twitter you can probably guess what it was. And I made French onion soup for the family on Sunday, and it came out excellent.

Oh, I went to the library too. We don’t need to talk about that. I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM.

So, what am I reading?

Well, I am plowing my way through my mother’s copy of HAMILTOME, in the hopes that I can finish it before she notices I swiped it. My local bookstore put The Raven King out on the shelves a few days early, which I confess was the outcome I had hoped for, and I purchased it feeling very wicked indeed and expecting at every moment that the booksellers would say HEY THAT BOOK IS NOT OUT YET and take it away from me. I’m trying to make it last because I’m going to be well sad when this series is over. And finally, I’m reading Jowhor Ile’s And After Many Days, which despite my casting it in the position of “vegetables to eat because I cannot eat dessert Raven King all the time,” is quite, quite excellent.

I want to quote like sixteen things from The Raven King, because I love what Maggie Stiefvater is doing with this world and these characters, but I will spare you. I will just say, for now, that there are some triplets in this book who are the light of my life.

It’s Monday, what are you reading?

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And After Many Days Archives - Reading the End

And After Many Days, Jowhor Ile

It’s Monday, April 25th. What Are You Reading?