But as The Death of Vivek Oji goes on, and Vivek’s mother Kasita becomes our detective, trying to solve the death of her son, Emezi refuses to follow the template of the genre. And on the day he died, the market in Ngwa, the Nigerian town where he lived, was burned down.Ī classic murder mystery would have us spend the rest of the novel hunting for the ne’er-do-well who killed Vivek, scanning all his closest connections for the motive that would have them commit such a dastardly crime. That line is all that exists of the first chapter, and it’s all we need to know: Vivek Oji lived, and now he is dead. “They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died,” Emezi writes, in the novel’s opening line. Vivek Oji begins, like all murder mysteries do, with a death.
Probably the best advice I’ve come across when it comes to reading Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji, the Vox Book Club’s April pick, is to treat it as an inverted murder mystery. ( From the publisher.The Vox Book Club is linking to to support local and independent booksellers.
Propulsively readable, teeming with unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel of family and friendship that challenges expectations-a dramatic story of loss and transcendence that will move every reader. As their relationship deepens-and Osita struggles to understand Vivek’s escalating crisis-the mystery gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of exhilarating freedom. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women married to Nigerian men.īut Vivek’s closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her son’s body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What does it mean for a family to lose a child they never really knew?
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