Returning to adult fiction after the success of their 2019 National Book Award finalist YA novel Pet, Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi brings readers a deep, tender look at a family unraveling around the tragic and early loss of someone they loved but never understood.
"They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died," the first chapter says in its arresting entirety. The narrative then steps back in time to Vivek's father, Chika, in his youth, years before he "would discover exactly how difficult it was to dig his own grave with the bones of his son." He falls in love with Indian immigrant Kavita, and the birth of their only child follows soon after Chika's brother, Ekene, and his wife, Mary, have their son Osita. The idyll ends when Chika and Ekene's mother, Ahunna, dies the same day Kavita gives birth.
Born with a starfish-shaped birthmark on his foot identical to a scar his grandmother had on hers, Vivek comes into the world "after death and into grief." As a tween, he suffers from inexplicable blackouts, and his father considers him too sensitive. As an older teen, Vivek finds solace and love among friends who accept him and in his impossible yet undeniably passionate relationship with Osita. When Vivek's fabric-wrapped corpse is left on his parents' doorstep without explanation, Kavita desperately searches for explanations about his life and death, while Osita grapples with how much of the truth he should tell.
By turns raw and gentle, this gorgeous #ownvoices drama features a cast of diverse nationalities, sexual orientations and gender identities. The mixture of third- and first-person narration reconstructs a life, largely from secondhand accounts. Emezi (Freshwater) beautifully captures an ordinary family in all its loving, hurtful, messy glory, then thoughtfully demonstrates that pressure placed on one member can backfire and undermine the entire unit. They also play on the reader's expectations of a transgender person's experience to create a surprising resolution to the mystery of Vivek's death. Although the motives and the method will probably seem foregone conclusions to readers, a few skillful bits of misdirection make the truth even more affecting when it does emerge. A spot-on pick for thoughtful book club discussion, The Death of Vivek Oji wraps up heartache with hope. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads
Shelf Talker: In this #ownvoices novel from National Book Award finalist Akwaeke Emezi, a grieving family searches for answers when its youngest member is found dead.