Title:                           Biographies are a Joke
Author:                      Stella Uchechi Nnodi
Genre:                       Short Stories and Poetry Collection
Publisher:                   SEVHAGE Publishers
Year of Publication:  2018
No. of Pages:              98
Reviewer:                   Eugene Yakubu

 

Biographies are a Joke is an experimental collection of stories and poems by Stella Uchechi Nnodi who set out to achieve not just therapy with her writing but to talk to readers who are trying to make sense of a life filled with questions. Even though written like fiction because of the second person narration used, some of the stories are most likely nonfictional.  Nonetheless, this is an honest and daring creative restructuring of real life events that the author uses as backdrop for her inspiration.

The stories are fast-paced and provocatively curt. The diction is simple and the dialogues in the stories are spontaneously creative however, you can hardly see the point the stories try to tender since after all said and done the conflicts in the stories are left hanging and the tension remains unpurge. For instance, the story I Wan See Mami Wata ended before the story even started. You can only wonder what they author tried to achieve with her abruptness. Nonetheless, the ideas behind the stories are always glaring but they don’t seem to be adequately appraised.

Should we call this a memoir? I think a diary fits better, for the tales are written with little or no connection with each other and ended with a provocative quickness just when the reader is starting to enjoy the story. The stories are eternally fast-forwarding or left “for another day” and the “long stories” are always cut “short” that the reader is left at the mercy of filling up the loopholes in the narrative structure just to make sense of the stories. This however reveals the author’s stream of thoughts as she set out to write. She scribbles to free her mind from the anxiety looming in her head that an unspoken story can cause. The stories are daring and unpretentious, it takes so much courage for a writer to bring to fore some parts of his or her private life to the public knowing well that the book comes and goes but her reputation outlives the reader. The stories have an unswerving unpretentiousness to it that will make amends in readers’ lives. The writer dared to use her personal experiences as background but this is because she is trying to be role models to women who might have found themselves in similar conditions and most importantly because she has realized the ability of words to heal the past, mend the present and directs the future.

In Biographies are a Joke, a book as presumptuous as its title, the writer avoided the temptation of writing the stories as autobiographical by substituting some aspects of her life for fiction, but still yet what could be more real than an emotional account of personal experiences and feelings poured out on paper? In Relax… Get Out! , a worthwhile account of culture of rape and sexual assault that women are suffered to endure from lusting monsters disguised as boyfriends is evident. This is in fact another perspective to rape that is perpetuated by loved ones and even friends that most writers don’t care to talk about. Nnodi does so in this micro tale and what makes it more interesting is that in all her horrific encounter she is able to maneuver her way to come out unhurt. Like she said “…the more resolved I was that he will not get “it” that day or ever”, she fought all these sexual tormentors to the bare and now she is using her experiences to drop words of caution and advice to any girl who might or will find herself in similar condition.

The writer has an impressive way with words which is applaudable. Her words always manage to strike at the idea she is trying to carry and she does it so accurately that the reader has little or no worries dealing with solecisms and muddled verbosity. She slips in some non-English words or sentences where it works and gives the collection a homely feel and traditional feel.

I believe a more coherent collection written either as a single story or even as a memoir would have done better than what Biographies are a Joke set out to achieve. For whatever the tales tried to hit at they leave much to be desired but again this might have been deliberate for the reader is left thirsting for more. I wish the stories didn’t have to end this sudden and the writer had given us more details and discussed her themes in more topical and, even though still emotional, but in an intellectual manner whereby this collection can set out to be an epic title on a number of books about womanhood, heartbreaks, love and life because it can be referenced to provide strong perspectives on life, marriage, career, adulthood, love and even relationship. The poems are however, creatively up-to-date with me, they exude attributes of quality poetry and the writer does well to capture her emotions in beautiful but clear language.

This is a commendable effort, and save for the hanging ideas and stories, cut-too-short tales, abrupt endings and unresolved conflicts, it would have achieved marvelously well on its theme and structure. Nnodi’s Biographies are a Joke is a unique worldview through the eye of an avid and “rabid” observer of life that every woman or lady must read. The stories are relatable and do well to relate the ideas in simple and accommodating, but grand diction.

 

 

Eugene Yakubu, creative writer and reviewer, writes from Kaduna.

————————————–

You can order the book online at https://okadabooks.com/book/about/biographies_are_a_joke/24057 on Amazon or just send a mail to sevhage@gmail.com