In “Who Will Greet You at Home” a childless woman working in a hair salon makes herself a baby out of human hair. In “Second Chances”, a young woman’s mother returns from the dead, opening up the possibility of a longed-for reconciliation and forgiveness. In the title story, Nneoma, a “grief worker” in a post-apocalyptic future, possesses the power to draw grief and sadness out of people “like poison from a wound”. Here is a debut writer showing serious range – drawing on realism, magical realism, the fantastic and speculative, myth and fable. Arimah’s focus is on the lives of girls and women, and while her perspective is often bleak, the collection is bracing and varied. The 12 stories that make up What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky are set in Nigeria and the US, sometimes moving between the two (the author was born in the UK, has lived in Nigeria and is now based in the States). O ne of the pleasures of reading Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut collection is the feeling of being thrown off balance: not knowing where this playful and adventurous new talent will take you next.
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