A Broken People’s Playlist

Description

A Broken People’s Playlist
by Chimeka Garricks

ISBN: 9780063268197
Softcover, new
Publication Date: 1/21/2025

Brief Description:
“A dozen interlinked, music-oriented stories set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria,
where Garricks was raised… Each songlike story feels like a breakout hit
encapsulating the brokenness and the beauty in life’s soundtrack.”–
Booklist, starred review “Beautifully woven . . . a magical delight.”–Hari
Kunzru, author of White Tears A Broken People’s Playlist is set to the
soundtrack of life, comprised of twelve music-inspired tales about love,
the human condition, micro-moments, and the search for meaning and
sometimes, redemption. It is also Chimeka Garricks’s love letter to his
native city, Port Harcourt, introducing us to a cast of indelible
characters in these loosely interlocked tales. There is the teenage
wannabe-DJ eager to play his first gig even as his family disastrously
falls apart–who reappears many years later as an unhappy middle-aged man
drunk-calling his ex-wife; a man who throws a living funeral for his dying
brother; three friends who ponder penis captivus and one’s peculiar
erectile dysfunction; a troubled woman who tries to find her peace-place in
the world, helped by a headful of songs and a pot of ginger tea. Infused
with the author’s resonant and evocative storytelling, each page holds “the
depth of a novel” (Hari Kunzru); a character, a moment that will–like a
favorite song–long linger in the heart and mind.