Blurb (summary at the back of the book):
“Leke is a troubled young man living in the suburbs of Cape Town. He develops strange habits of stalking people, stealing small objects and going from doctor to doctor in search of companionship rather than cure. Through a series of letters written to him by his Nigerian father whom he has never met, Leke learns about a family curse; a curse which his father had unsuccessfully tried to remove.”
***
I have never read anything by Yewande Omotoso. Although I’ve had this book – Bom Boy (published in 2011 by Modjaji Books) – for a number of years now, I haven’t really read it. First, I read a few pages, put it down and promised myself that when I have the time, when life is a little bit less stressful, I will read it.
I didn’t read it. As months passed, I forgot about the book. That was until a friend asked me if I had read all the books on my book shelf. “So many books! Have you read them all?” he said.
“No,” I said, without thinking.
“Which have you read?”
“This one,” I said, pointing at Thando Mgqolozana’s Unimportance. I continued pointing at all the books I’ve read, crossing my fingers and hoping that he’d desist from asking me to review and summarize each and every book I pointed at.
“And this one, why haven’t you read it?” he said, pointing at Bom Boy. I didn’t have an answer to his question. But I promised myself that as soon as things slowed down at school, I’ll read it.
And…I did! And didn’t I like every moment of it!
I liked how simple yet intricate Omotoso’s plot is. She starts her story in 2001 – during Leke’s ninth birthday. From the onset, we are introduced to the socially awkward Leke, who is “certain” that having his own party is an ill-thought idea by his adoptive parents. This social awkwardness accounts for his behaviour; that is, the stalking, the stealing and his troubles of fitting in the society.
Omotoso’s narrative moves between the past and the present with relative ease. The past is always influencing the present. The letters from Leke’s biological father, which he refuses to read, are a lifeline from the past. They haunt him yet there’s nothing much he can do without them. To move on and to begin living, he must first encounter his past; the curse from his past. It is only when he begins to accept his past that a glimmer of hope begins to shine on his life.
The book is what many people would consider long – at 252 pages long. But there is no dull moment. Omotoso keeps her readers entertained at all times. You turn from the first page to the next, to the next….and by the time you wake up, the book is finished.
ZZ xx