Who teaches a woman that one day her body will betray her? That her breastmilk will not flow after parturition? They may teach her about that crazy hormone, oxytocin, in school, but who teaches a woman how to live when womanly things do not come instinctual to her womanly body?
In Pemi Aguda’s Ghostroots, it is breastmilk; then it is the haunting semblance to a dead relative; then the consequences of past misdeeds coming back to bite your ass. It is the gusty wind of death on 24 Alhaji Williams Street that Pemi fleshes out to shake her characters’ existence. She gives her characters full mind and body presence in these usual yet fast-paced experiences of womanhood and human-hood. Where else will you find lactation and breast milk taking centre stage in a book of short stories?
But don’t let me deceive you. Like the book cover—a mosaic of colours, unusual shapes, and letters—Ghostroots is not one story, nor is it one style. Pemi’s book is much more than the sum of her second riveting short story, “Breastmilk,” in this magical 12-story collection. Pemi is keen on detail. She paints a world that capture her characters in the present. She doesn’t burden her writing with dialogue, plot, setting, or even the need to involve radical topics. The emphasis is on what they are going through in the present.
Pemi Aguda is an MFA graduate from the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan. Though many of her works have found homes in numerous anthologies while reeling in awards for the author, Ghostroots is her first full body of work. Being no stranger to the city, Pemi’s stories are fleshed out in the boisterous city of Lagos, Nigeria; however, much of the city is reimagined by the author to contain the lives of her characters.
She is a master of words and literary devices. She weaves delicately and threads boldly the lives in her book. With abstract and chilling stories, Pemi darts across a wide range of topics. Much of her writing is symbolic and poetic, with a dash of metaphor here and a pinch of the salt of allegory there. When Pemi dismembers the body parts of the debtor in “Contributions,” it is clear that this author is not on a mission to please or soothe the easy-minded or the lovers of happily ever-afters. Her endings are dark, twisted, quizzical, disturbing, and magical.
Her characters cut across all works and ages, yet a unifying theme is how they all seem to be trapped—in generational curses, in guilt, in the past. In this entrapment, we see these characters weigh the pain of the past and the possibilities of the future, but we hardly get closure from these places of stagnation. Will they move forward or backwards?
Pemi describes the thrill of writing these short stories in an interview. The mysticism which allows her to play with the unknown without planning an end provides the thrill during the writing process. One can feel this mystical charge throughout her book. In Pemi’s book, a building can shape-shift and swallow its inhabitants in “The Hollow,” a market can arise out of nowhere at dusk in “The Dusk Market,” a woman can take flight after a magic trick in “Birdwoman,” and breastmilk is also a vehicle able to carry the emotions of hate and anger to a child in “Breastmilk.” There is no circumscribing the breadth of her creativity
Many of Pemi’s stories are family-oriented, particularly reflecting the typical African family dynamic. Many of her characters become easily relatable in that they embody the thoughts and emotions of many who have been forced to quieten their inner thoughts in order to please their parents and the society.
In “Imagine Me Carrying You,” we see the inner workings of Olivia’s mind as she relates to her mother, and we can fully empathise because that sort of friction is not uncommon. What makes this book so special is that despite being so abstract and allegorical, it’s still relatable. And, though much of the book is thick with hidden truths and masked meanings, there are times when the air shifts to a lighter, more humorous place.
Pemi’s stories are all similar which makes this body of work cohesive and a gem on any shelf. My favourite is undeniably “Breastmilk,” but there is no story I did not love, even though there are some I could not relate to. Yet, there is something in it for everyone.
