Rémy NgamijeCritiques

Set in Namibia and South Africa this is a coming of age story of a college student who is coming to terms with his immigrant status, racism and relationships. The GR description is a bit misleading with its emphasis on the family flight from Rwanda. It's very much a contemporary story with sections devoted to the backstory of his parents (which were among my favorite portions of the book - both moving and funny).

This took me a little while to get in the mood for, but Ngamije has really crafted a rich stew of history and its repercussions, literature, pop culture and growing up.

Coming-of-age story set primarily in Namibia in the 1990s. Protagonist Séraphin and his family are living in Windhoek, after fleeing Rwanda in the wake of the genocide. The storyline follows Séraphin as he bickers with his brothers, attends school, makes friends, develops relationships, and tries to figure out what to do with his life. Séraphin experiences pressure from his family to become a lawyer after graduation – something he is not sure he wants to do.

It is an atypical migration chronicle. It examines the sad truth that migrants are not always welcomed no matter where in the world we find them. Though the novel contains humor, I would not call it funny. It examines serious topics, particularly racial issues in southern Africa soon after the apartheid laws were repealed.

The story itself is oriented toward a small group of college friends (the term “squad” comes to mind), who, tongue in cheek, name themselves the “High Lords of Empireland.” It contains strings of their text messages, which are bold and sarcastic. The characters come across as real people.

The “audience of one” appears to be Séraphin himself. Whenever a decision presents, he debates with himself through a chorus of voices. He is not actually hearing voices – these are just various versions of his conscience. He deals with common youthful challenges, such as insecurities, identity, and independence. Séra’s response is to develop a “persona” – he is the DJ with the cool playlists, the aloof “player” with many conquests, but the reader also sees his vulnerability and the way he is hurt when he gets close to a few romantic partners.

I very much enjoyed the author’s writing style – it is clever and expressive. He is quite the wordsmith. This is a debut by an obviously talented author.

I received an advanced reader’s copy from the publisher. It is due for publication August 10, 2021.

I was given an ARC by Netgalley. This is a glimpse into a life of an eldest child, Seraphin, whose family abruptly left Rwanda. The family eventually ends up in Namibia. The reader experiences his day to day life and educational journey as he tries to straddle just being a teenager and eventually college kid against being a refugee in Namibia while highlighting the societal constraints of not really being Namibians or South African (where he goes to university) and trying to please parents and himself along the way. I enjoyed this book. It sounds heavy but is delivered with a masterful use of description and a lot of humor.

introduction alone makes this worth reading

Namibian author Remy Ngamigi is an author to watch. His debut follows the life of Rwandan immigrant, Seraphin, as he completes his final year of law school in Capetown, South Africa. He goes through many short relationships with women as he struggles with coming to terms with the continued racism he sees in South Africa. Its not just a story of one young man, it’s a story of his well-educated parents who fled the violence of Rwanda for Namibia where they find themselves losing out of job opportunities because they are immigrants. Seraphin’s comments throughout the book show how Ngamigi can construct a story that celebrates the successes and continued challenges of immigrants.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What do you get from a wisecracking young African novelist when you turn him loose with a contract? A novel of the prices exacted by immigration on the emigrated persons, be that emigration voluntary or enforced, cannot help but run into the problem of "why am I here again?" for its fat, complacent first-world-native readers. The usual answer is, "where else would you like to be?" Author Ngamjie writes sentences like this:

The only certainty is this: everything that is not the end must be the start of something else.

Séra says that his mother said it first; I believe him. I believe whatever Author Ngamije says, actually. I have already said nice things about Author Ngamjie's writing when I discussed The Neighbourhood for last year's Caine Prize reviews. He's deployed a lot more of his snappy humor here (a bed so narrow it should have a singles-site profile, East African parents outdoing the Spanish Inquisition in the barbarity of their interrogation, "FOMO, the acronym of doom," a vile w-bomb at 47% being self-described as a "salacious nictation"...though that didn't prevent him from using it three more times), having so much more room to make the case for laughs. Laughs you'll get, for absolute sure and certain. When Therése and Séra meet at a less-than-opportune moment, for example. If you fail to fall about screaming with laughter at how Author Ngamjie structures that scene, then you are deficient.

And there is a great deal of uncertainty in the happiness of the parents in this story. There are no swift and sure answers to the eternal eyeroll of the offspring. A stern reminder, however, that your parents didn't become parents without having some kinda past together is fully served in several chapters. The set-up for them being together, a party attended in Paris, is...incomplete at first telling. It seems there was a lot more to being young in that day and time...well. Usually there was some, um, carnal dimension to their partnering up for parenthood:

His torso occupied every inch of his shirt, and his maroon bell-bottom jeans accentuated a prim pair of buttocks and strong thighs.

He was dressed to pull, for sure! And Therése was very much there to be pulled...well, that is half the story, and the other half was told, so you'll find it when you get to it. But the parenting years came next. A thankless task, that, and made more difficult by the implosion of their country. Several flashbacks to that time are all from Séra's child-vision. It's very effective, and still manages to evoke from the adult reader the fear and the determination of the parents to protect their kids. And then they spent the entire rest of their lives ensuring you'd have it better than they do, Séra. So what does he do with his uni life in Cape Town? What all of us did! Party! Make a group of like-minded friends, find something to rag on the world about...the usual twentysomething life. Author Ngamije says smart, funny things in a smartass way, just like Séraphin himself. He's got a helluva mouth on him, does Séra, and he's not afraid to use it.

...{I}f nobody ever makes it to the start of a story, and if everyone is in the same boat just bailing and steering as best they can, then I guess the whole point of life is to make some sort of a start and then work towards some kind of ending, whenever and wherever it might be. Part plagiarism will permit to agree with Shakespeare: "All the world's a staage..." upon which we perform for the eternal audience of one. ... I guess, then, that the point of life is to dive in, hold on, and hope that a flop...is worth the laugh at the very end.

–and–

"She actually likes black people," Séraphin said. "And it isn't because she's traveled a lot. Slavers traveled too and look where that got us."

–and–

"I have a better chance of being Pablo Escobar than being Pablo Neruda."

"You and drug dealers." {She} laughed. "Not a fan of poetry, then?"

"I approach poetry like other people's dogs. With great caution."

The entire group of friends stay hooked in to their affection for each other, such as it is, and they overlook the usual tensions in any group setting...the odd man out, the tolerated-but-unloved, the group boss with the plans everyone goes along with because it's easier than fighting and better than anyone else's ideas anyway. The flirting, the hookups...the breakups and dumpings...it's all there, exactly where it should be, told in texts instead of long calls and short meetings.

There is, of course, the requisite older woman in Séraphin's résumé, and she speaks a truth to him: "There is a point when actions become promises," that I truly wish I knew how to embroider so I could make a pillow-cover out of. I am also moved by immigrant Séra meditating on forgiveness being meaningless without remembering the thing being forgiven. It is a truth I learned much later in my life than he was forced to, but a severely underrated one in the general conversation we as a society should be having with more seriousness than we seem to be doing.

The lighthearted moments, let me hasten to say now, are quite prevalent in the book. More time laughing is spent than Other Things. Don't mistake this for some gloomy, first-novel-MFA-program navel-gazing! You'll know for sure that you're in good, capable hands, that this is a cocktail party you can't quite imagine how you got invited to and not Thanksgiving with your in-laws.

That is also, of course, apparent in some less joy-giving ways. The function of Séraphin's Great Council of Séraphins is clearly to make you aware that you've shifted to the inner workings of the lad's head; the problem is, for this seasoned reader, it was overused. Two or three times would've been effective...many more and it becomes Ben Stiller's 2013 remake of Danny Kaye's 1947 comedic classic The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. As much fun as recalling the original was for the first twenty minutes, seeing the shots recreated...well...it got old.

The fragmented construction of the story will put some readers off. The flashbacks aren't slowing the story down, I will protest, they are giving it traction! But many will disagree with me, I fear. Structuring a story in an anti-chronological way does indeed allow us to feel, instead of see, the action as the characters do. It does also require of us that we pay attention to what's underlying the surface story of an immigrant leaving home to leave home to learn how to return home to make a home. It's really just that simple...Thomas Wolfe did it, y'all all lapped it up. Ride the waves, don't shove your feet into them. (Have I ever mentioned that my Young Gentleman Caller is a surfer?)

There is a time in a character's arc that the wise mentor offers a personal story that illuminates a Greater Truth that Our Hero needs to hear. That time came, it lingered a bit too long for comfort, and then it was over. That was, actually, a good thing, because the purpose of it was a deeper one than was expected. The way it happens, the moment it comes, are a little bit deceptive, so kudos to Author Ngamije for that misdirection. I like not knowing everything!

But the classic misdirection, well. Remember how you found out your parent was a person before you were born? Remember the moment you learned what they least wanted you to know but you needed to hear? That moment is a beaut in this book, one of those "...I didn't know you had it in you..." times that come to all adult children. I loved it, and if you're the reader I hope you are for reading my reviews, you'll carry on to the very end for the reward you're offered.

"All arguments can be fixed. Circumstances, not so much."

Formerly tall father stood next to tall son.

"You have to decide whether you want to be right or whether you want to be happy. It is a simple choice."

It may be simple...it is simple...but it is never easy.½

This coming-of-age tale is a kind of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in an African setting. The story is age-old and thus very relatable: a young man is on the cusp of adulthood, and strains against familial ties, aching to be free of them, of home, and make his way in the world, although he isn't sure how. While some of it holds the reader's interest well with conflicts the protagonist faces in his family, friendships, romantic interests, work and school, as well as the wider world, I found myself skimming other parts that went on too long, did not pertain to the main story, and focused on peripheral characters too much. (There's also way too much detailed description of sexual exploits.) There is a lot of time-shifting here, as the author tries to give us not only Sera's story (and backstory, stretching into the distant past) but also the wider picture of the Rwandan refugees' stories, touching on his mother's, his father's, and even his parents' friends' histories.In conjunction with that there are narrative shifts to different points of view of the different characters the author focuses on. That kind of breadth makes for a nice panorama but detracts from what should have been a tighter focus on Sera's story.

Remy Ngamije does a magical thing with The Eternal Audience of One — he turns what most American readers consider foreign (Africa) and makes it feel universal. The story basically spans Séraphin’s last year of law school in Cape Town with his rowdy and diverse group of friends but fills in the backstory for many characters with brief flashbacks. Séraphin’s family are refugees from the Rwandan civil war living in Namibia, and he can’t wait to be anywhere else. College and law school in metropolitan Cape Town seem like just the thing, but Séraphin struggles with the twenty-something angst of not knowing who or what he wants from life. Ngamije’s style and attention to details range from laugh-out-loud funny to emotionally beautiful, and his ability to nail a character’s essence in the short backstories is priceless. The Eternal Audience of One is a funny coming-of-age story that still manages to explore deep themes of racism, xenophobia, family, and African history. A huge recommendation from me--can’t wait to give it to readers.