A Kirkus Reviews Best Memoir of 2021
The astonishing journey of a bright, utterly displaced boy, from the short-lived African nation of Biafra, to Jamaica, to the harshest streets of Los Angelesa searing memoir that adds fascinating depth to the coming-to-America story
The first time Chude-Sokei realizes that he is first son of the first son of a renowned leader of the bygone African nation is in Uncle Daddy and Big Aunties strict religious household in Jamaica, where he lives with other abandoned children. A visiting African has just fallen to his knees to shake him by the shoulders: Is this the boy? Is this him?
Chude-Sokeis immersion in the politics of race and belonging across the landscape of the African diaspora takes a turn when his traumatized mother, who has her own extraordinary history as the onetime Jackie O of Biafra, finally sends for him to come live with her. In Inglewood, Los Angeles, on the eve of gangsta rap and the LA riots, its as if hes fallen to Earth. In this world, anything aliendefinitely Chude-Sokeis secret obsession with science fiction and David Bowieis a danger, and his yearning to become a Black American gets deeply, sometimes absurdly, complicated. Ultimately, it is a boisterous pan-African family of honorary aunts, uncles, and cousins that becomes his secret society, teaching him the redemptive skill of navigating not just Blackness, but Blacknesses, in his America.
