Book Review: What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Pub Date: 4 April 2017
Genre: Literary Fiction, Short Stories

Panda Rating:

(4.5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.

In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In “The Future Looks Good,” three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in “Light,” a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to “fix the equation of a person” – with rippling, unforeseen repercussions.

Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Domestic abuse, child abuse, trauma, violence

TL;DR: What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky is a fantastic collection of short stories. These stories are about mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, lovers, friends, and enemies. It’s about the people you love, hate, admire, fear, envy, and respect. They touch upon resilience, grief, hope, and joy, but most of all, these are stories about women and girls with fire in their bellies and who refused to be stamped out. No matter whether they’re set in the past, present, future or other reality, these stories are so utterly human and realistic. The author doesn’t treat you to abstract pretensions, but gives these stories to you straight, and I love this collection more for it. Light is by far my favourite, but The Future Looks Good and Windfalls are fantastic as well. Overall, this was a beautifully written and well connected short story collection that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend!

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