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Title details for What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah - Available

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

Stories

by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Adjoa Andoh
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
A PBS NewsHour/New York Times Book Club Pick
A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE
WINNER OF THE 2017 KIRKUS PRIZE
WINNER OF THE NYPL'S YOUNG LIONS FICTION AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE LEONARD PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 4, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781524751456
      • File size: 153487 KB
      • Duration: 05:19:45

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Arima's stunning collection of short stories is well rooted in Nigerian culture, both diasporic and native. So it's just as well that narrator Adjoa Andoh has an eclectic palette of accents to draw from as she moves effortlessly across the globe from story to story. Andoh brings a certain coarseness, in particular, to her often ferocious portrayals of motherhood--a coarseness that proves valuable in a collection of stories dominated by Nigerian mothers no listener would disobey in a hurry. Arima shifts from mythological to modern romance in a heartbeat, offering Andoh the opportunity to showcase her dramatic versatility with only the rarest of missteps in an otherwise exemplary readings. These stories are phenomenal and, in combination with Andoh's reading, are not to be missed. Z.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      November 15, 2017

      Arimah's debut collection comprises a dozen surprising, affecting stories. Narrator Adjoa Andoh sublimely intensifies the author's already breathtaking prose into an irresistible, spectacular performance, as she effortlessly modulates her distinctive voice, picking up genders and generations, cadences and accents, and just as easily discards such details for the next scene, the next story. Andoh is both innocent and knowing in "Wild," about two teenage cousins--one American, the other Nigerian--forced to spend a summer together. She grows determined in "Light," about a family splintered by opportunity and distance. She growls through "Who Will Greet You at Home," about motherless women making phantom babies. She navigates both desperation and entitlement in "What Is a Volcano" between feuding, less-than-equal gods. Resignation drives "Windfalls," about an untethered mother and daughter trying to survive. Detachment goes awry in the titular story as a mathematician attempts to alchemize humanity into numbers. VERDICT Libraries with patrons especially partial to magnificent, international discoveries will want to provide Sky in multiple formats. ["Each story, tightly crafted and unique, will etch into your memory": LJ 5/1/17 starred review of the Riverhead hc.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 27, 2017
      In her powerful and incisive debut collection, Arimah shuttles between continents and realities to deliver 12 stories of loss, hope, violence, and family relationships. In “Wild,” a reckless teenage girl is sent from America to her aunt in Nigeria, only to get caught up in the life of her equally reckless cousin. “Second Chances” sees a deceased mother magically reappear in her family’s life, with mixed results, and “Buchi’s Girls” is about a widow struggling to raise two daughters while living in her sister’s house. Mother and daughter grifters deal with an unexpected pregnancy in “Windfalls,” while the collection’s futuristic title story explores a world in which mathematicians have unlocked the secrets to all humanity, allowing humans to remove emotional pain from others and disrupt the laws of nature. Arimah gracefully inserts moments of levity into each tale and creates complex characters who are easy to both admire and despise. From the chilling opening story, “The Future Looks Good,” structured like a Russian nesting doll, to the closing story, “Redemption,” this collection electrifies.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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