Review by Booklist Review
Gappah's compelling debut short story collection features a variety of characters struggling to thrive and endure despite the bleak conditions and hardships of everyday life in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. The Cracked, Pink Lips of Rosie's Bridegroom follows the thoughts of wedding guests as they contemplate, but do not speak of aloud, Rosie's fate, signaled by the groom's red lips and his deceased first wife and girlfriends. With Our Man in Geneva Wins a Million Euros, an elderly diplomat eager to provide for his family travels to Amsterdam in hope of securing riches promised to him via a suspicious e-mail. In the standout The Mupandawana Dancing Champion, a carpenter loses both his job and pension, left only with three ill-fitting pairs of shoes as reward for 25 years of service. Lured out of retirement to work as coffin maker, he attempts to win a local dance competition to surprising, satirical results. Gappah's 13 tales cover a bountiful range of subjects politics, immigration, physical and mental illness and characters vary in age, class, and gender, making for a lively and thought-provoking volume.--Strauss, Leah Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In her accomplished debut, Gappah, a Zimbabwean writer and international trade lawyer, casts her compassionate eye on a diverse array of characters living, grieving, loving-and fighting to survive-under Robert Mugabe's regime. "In the Heart of the Golden Triangle," the second-person narrative of a wealthy woman's tormented marriage, turns a mirror upon the reader: "You worry because you have not found condoms in his pockets," the narrator muses of her husband's behavior, "but in the cushioned comfort of your four-by-four, you don't feel a thing." Meanwhile, in "The Cracked, Pink Lips of Rosie's Bridegroom," a village ponders a doomed marriage in which the groom, who has a history of "buried... girlfriends," is clearly marked as being afflicted by "the big disease with the little name." In "The Mupandawana Dancing Champion," Gappah sets her sights on political absurdities with a cutting story about a coffin maker with some great dance moves and an unfortunate nickname. Gappah's deep well of empathy and saber-sharp command of satire give her collection a surplus of heart and verve. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A fine, soul-stirring debut presents 13 snapshots of life in desperate contemporary Zimbabwe. Hunger, disease and a worthless currency loom over this varied collection. In the title story, Josephat's wife believes, after three miscarriages, that his aunts are eating her children. The truth, which involves her unfaithful husband and a pregnant madwoman in their ramshackle township, is almost as shocking. Rich or poor, Zimbabwean men are equally promiscuous. Esther, a South African, calls them "worthless dogs." In "At the Sound of the Last Post," she is attending the state funeral of her husband, a hero of the liberation struggle who died from AIDS, which stalks many of these characters. The funeral is a sham: Her husband was a corrupt bigamist who avoided the war. The meaty "Something Nice from London" spotlights a family of professionals dragged down by another useless male. After bleeding his parents dry, ne'er-do-well Peter lies dead in London, and his quarreling relatives await the return of his body in a scintillating black comedy. Elsewhere Gappah dips into the past. "Aunt Juliana's Indian" shows an Indian shopkeeper/employer in 1979 to be almost as difficult as the whites, while in the effervescent "My Cousin-Sister Rambanai" the ever-adaptable title character, a young immigrant woman, hustles her way in 2002 from Texas to London via Harare, greasing palms back home to get a new passport. "The Negotiated Settlement" dissects a marriage. Thulani wed young and now feels trapped, though occasional flings relieve the pressure. His wife knows what he's doing, but despite a revenge fling with a fellow teacher, she wants only Thulani. The author gives this unhappy couple a ray of hope at the end, which is unusual here. Frustrated in love, her characters are more likely to consider suicide, as the mental patient in "The Annex Shuffle" does, or to actually kill themselves, like the character in "The Maid from Lalapanzi." Searing, but never over the top: Gappah holds the anger and horror in check with exemplary artistic discipline. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
