One time, I was seated in my car in an empty parking lot, waxing poetic about Carmen Machado’s “The Husband Stitch,” to my mad titan best friend Angasa because I was so blown away by this piece of writing. To me it was the most obscure brilliant thing I’ve ever read and I pondered hard on what it meant. Only a genius could write this and only a genius could interpret what it all meant.
Angasa, who had just read the story the day before scoffed and said “it’s obviously about how women can’t have anything for themselves and how we can’t live in isolation” or some other intelligent thing. She proceeded to tell me there were so many other stories just like it. That moment has stayed with me since.
When she said that, something in me shattered and rearranged. I was faced with the reality that as a writer, as a reader, as someone who studies media and society, there were just some things I wasn’t smart enough to fully appreciate.
I admire Ngasa and as of late, I have started admiring Mquzama. These are two people I personally know who can sit down and start dissecting books like it’s child’s play. I know it’s in part because they expose themselves to a wider range of media and critical analyses, and it’s a reminder to me that I want to be smarter too. And when that day comes, these are the books I’ll be revisiting:
1. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Machado
This shouldn’t come as a shock given that this is the collection that houses the Husband Stitch. And even though the aforementioned is my favourite story I believe the others are just as brilliant (perhaps?)- if only i could understand them. I mean, it’s very grim stories about women and the end of the world and other such things. I can’t even tell you right now, but I will when I go through it again.
2. The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
This is another short story collection and Angasa could not shut up about the brilliance of this one. I failed to see it. Well, that’s not true. I could see it was brilliant. I know the stories where metaphors and allegories about well the intersectionality of things. This book discourses, I know it does. But I can not, for the life of me tell you what it discourses about. I know its about race and its implications on how our histories are told – well at least I think so based on the title and what I remember. But what about race and history exactly? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
3. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
This I very well know is exploring what it’s like to be in the UK while inhibiting a black man’s body and how that can affect the way you love people. But even as I type that, I fully feel like I am not doing this justice. I actually need to sit down and take my time with this relatively short book and unpack everything brick by brick.
4. Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Over half this list is just short story collections really. With this particular collection, I can not even tell you a semblance of what it is about. I don’t know if it has intelligent things to say or if it’s just weird or both. But even as I read the stories, I just knew there was something I was missing, so I’ll give it another go.
5. What it Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Now this collection I fully know is more intelligent than it is absurb but don’t get me wrong, it’s still plenty weird in other places. The whole title story is literally about how people made calculations that somehow led to human flight, but then get it wrong after years and then a man falls from the sky. What does that mean exactly? No clue.
6. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The breadth of issues. The details. Everything. I think there is a lot that Bennett explores in this, but the first time I read it, I was hardly moved. However, I found myself rethinking these issues the more time passed after I had put it down. Almost everyone I know who read it could not shut up about it and it made me reconsider that maybe, just maybe, I did not appreciate it enough on the first read.
7. Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
This book, even as I read it the first time, I knew I would need to reread it. Another book that tackles a lot of questions. Some that I truly believed I missed on my first read. It explores in particular crime and punishment and I think the politics of the death penalty but in a way that’s not detached – so to speak. I remember putting this down and fully thinking, I need to gather my thoughts and come back to this one day.
