Marieke's review
Graceland by Chris Abani
Graceland is the tale of a Nigerian youth whose name happens to be Elvis. He grows up in a somewhat rural area, where the periphery of his childhood imagination is dappled with images of a father named Sunday running for political office in a corrupt system, former child soldiers with PTSD who have now become outcastes in the local village, a dying mother. Elvis' move to the megalopolis of Lagos in his teens tells us a story of a city on the precipice of modernity in the early 80s, which in his experience is juxtaposed with the traditions, myths, and prejudices which informed his more pastoral upbringing. Elvis reflects what the author Chris Abani calls a "schizophrenia of beingness" also embodied in the chaotic yet ordered anarchy of the city itself; before becoming absorbed in the underbelly of the city's crime-world, Elvis is an aspiring dancer by day (he dresses up as Elvis, of course), performing for tourists in what can only be presumed to be an apish manner. I would re...more
