| History repeats in this story of two gay British-Nigerian friends exploring race and masculinity “Maybe fathers could explain sons?” wonders Achike, an actor in his late 30s with a film career on the ascendant yet a nagging sense of incompleteness. His childhood friend Ekene experiences manhood as a burden: “Why do I have to be this hard, painful thing? … Why can’t I be somebody’s boy?” Okechukwu Nzelu’s second novel, Here Again Now, begins with these two gay British-Nigerian men, then traces back to their fathers and their fathers before them, as well as a father figure, uncle and stepdad – variously disciplinarian, drunk, unavailable, absent, abusive and repressed. It’s a story made from broken family tree branches. Achike has recently travelled to Nigeria to play dual roles in a movie set across two lifetimes. The script, titled Here Again Now, is based on an Igbo belief system in which humans are reincarnated into the same family line – in other words, set up for second chances. Having returned to south London, Achike lets both his alcoholic father Chibuike and jobless Ekene move in with him. Achike and Ekene have the same “long, clever fingers”, and were the only boys with Igbo names in their class in Manchester. But Achike can now afford a flat, expensive cologne and therapy sessions, whereas Ekene has abandoned his own dreams of acting and is struggling to get work as a teacher. Ekene can be blithe to the edge of cruelty. Achike is more disciplined, gallant, painfully earnest, prone to migraines. Continue reading... |
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