I find that Nana Sule is an author with one of the clearest voices I have experienced. She knows what she wants to say and as she says it, you hear every bit of it. And underneath that clarity where you think you know everything there is more. And this ties very well with her ethos as an artist, as a creative and as a person.

Not So Terrible People is a short story collection of eleven stories from Nana Sule. Set in the same universe, in the same country and are interlinked, you have characters from one story appearing in another story. You have shifts in perspectives and these perspectives cut across a swathe of narrative styles, emotions and events that all serve to deepen the drama in this book. It is a 156-paged read but make no mistake, it is brilliant

Nana Sule created a puzzle, a charcuterie board if I may to put it correctly. The stories in this collection help each other. They explain one another, verify facts, serve up different pieces of the plot. Each new story takes you in a different direction and at the same time deeper into the plot while at the same time standing on their own.

Let’s dive deeper into this book.

About the Book Cover

I was not to thrilled about the cover or the name of the book at first.

The cover looked like the icons were taken from stock image website. It did not feel customized. I mean, if you look hard enough you can get these feathers anywhere. I thought the horns and tail in the ‘O’ was a nice touch but the name Not So Terrible People was a name I thought was pedestrian, not very high literature.

Novel titles often combine both abstract ideas and concrete ideas; The Brevity of Beautiful Things, The Smoke That Thunders. Other names are just mysterious. 2666, The God of Small things.

But, the name Not So Terrible People was sucker punch.

I saw Not So Terrible People and knew that I was going to read about people. But then wetin feathers and halo and devil horns dey do for cover, in a story about people? It felt out of place.

I had to read the book cover to cover the first time to find what was hiding in plain sight.

First there is a halo floating above and, on either edge of the cover are wings, angel wings at the edges of this book. In the middle of all these are not so terrible people and the horns and tail denoting the devil in popular media is inside the word "People." Each one of these elements depicts something in the book ties into the stories inside this book.

If you have read this book, you would know that these humans are smack in the middle of something and one of these people is the vessel for horns and a tail.

Premise

The title simple serves up the premise of this book.

People are not so terrible.

And the author achieves this by holding up the actions of these people, listening to their stories and giving us witness from several perspectives. Your journey to making your decision on the characters differs with the sequence in which these stories approach you.

Narrative Structure

The narrative winds down through eleven stories, each one standing alone on its own, like something you would find in a literary magazine, yet when they are put together, they form a large overarching plot that you cannot see unless you have witnessed individual pieces of this story.

In the human stories, a woman's husband is missing because a train is raided. Another woman cannot return home. A man returning home to his mourning wife when he comes across something supernatural.

Within these seemingly innocuous human dramata are the machinations of supernatural beings of unthinkable power who have a different agenda. Across the seven heavens, hell, the world of jinn and earth, these supernatural beings, lurking at the edges of their existence, like these wings lurk at the edges of the book cover, are working overtime to reincarnate a powerful angel into the world.

Genuis!

Structure

When it comes to the arrangement of the eleven stories themselves, it is the sheer work of genius. Now the first five stories detail the day-to-day human struggles of the people, with minimal supernatural influence.

With Amal, we witness a woman talking to an angel, giving an account of her life as in the Islamic tradition of judgement. This story, named Amal, serves to plunge into the supernatural nature of this book, but not forcefully.

Owanyi settles into how the supernatural is stitched into the daily lives of this book. It is about a woman who cannot return home.

The next three stories happen in the town of Kurmi where a woman mourns her missing husband, and a community mad man mourns the death of an old man.

The sixth, Malaika, contains one therapy session of angel fallen from the seven heavens who details his history from his birth and just then, we begin to see the scale of this story.

In Ometere, a woman is trying to fix her breaking marriage. Ozovehe is the man running home to his wife. Rahinat listens to an incredible story. Oyiza deals with feelings of neglect from her parents, and the last story Laila is about a woman who can see jinn.

This well thought out, pieces this puzzle in the best way, delivering each piece of the story, allowing you enjoy the emotion and human depth of these stories and then finally hitting you with the keys to unlocking the treasures and locating the easter eggs scattered around the literature. It feels like someone hid chocolate around the house and put clues for you to find them.

Place and Setting

This story happens across three dimensions, heaven, hell, jinn and earth and we bear witness to angels, jinn and humans and so you would find several supernatural things happening in this novel, but it is not laden with it. These supernatural things serve the story, and it is not the other way around. All of the worldbuilding happens in-story.

Language and Voice

Readers are treated to a variety of styles. Nana cycles through different narrative style and perspectives; conversational, fist-person, second-person, third person, poetic, distant, close. And she is not choosing these styles just because they feel good. Each style serves to present the story; in the best way it can be in the collection.

For instance, Ohunene is written as the first person diary entry and that brings us into her thoughts and we cycle through the panic of a woman, who is fighting to retain the interest of her husband, but then we pull back and discover in another story that except for that struggle, she has had a charmed life that she might be slightly ungrateful for.

The language is accessible. A little too accessible even. I worried that it was too simple to hold any subtext but that served the story even better, pointing blazing arrows to its subplots and overarching plots.

Tone also ranges. Amal's story is very cheeky and funny. Rahila's relationship with Ohunene has gut wrenching moments. Malaika's monologue stretches into the surreal. Ometere is simply crazy.

Where the writer conceptualizes a story and the editors do their job to remove obstacles for the reader to behold what the writer’s message. The editors did an exceedingly good job here. Shoutout to Carl Terver who worked on the structure for this book. He deserves a forest of flowers.

The writing voice is perhaps one of the clearest you would ever come across. If you have ever listened to Nana read or just even talk

The musicality, the cadence, the spaces between the words, all of those qualities she bequeaths into this text for an easy and enjoyable read.

Characters

One thing I find is Nana's striking ability to zone it on what makes people, people. This collection is an excellent study on the goodness or terribleness of human nature.

As each story is based around each character, we are basically examining the events, actions and nurturing of these characters. These characters explore the duality and boldly portrays Nana's idea that people, in general, are not terrible but they do terrible things because they want to do something.

In essence, this is more than just a collection that dazzles, it requests empathy, forgiveness that at least, before breaking off our connections with people, we should try to understand why they do terrible things. This would perhaps help us grow. I would conjecture that this is what is at the core of this character study. Very social healing.

If you want to learn more about the characters, it would be sweet if you watched our version on the video. We discuss the characters and why she tried to do with them. This is one book where I am confident that the reader can extract everything, they need from it without my help.

Discourse

Now you know I like literature that sacrifices everything else to advance the frontiers of storytelling. I like experimental stories because through experimentation, I can study storytelling techniques and understand elements of fiction better. I like work that makes me think differently. Work that makes, breaks and reinvents language. I like work that sacrifices everything that is known to discover what is unknown. The charm of a lot of high literature is in how you have to upgrade your reading level to access the author or vibe with the motifs used to deliver the content.

While Not So Terrible People, doesn't read like what I would normally draw charts and squares about, it is right up there with the literary works that have broken ground.

The literary merit of Not So Terrible People bleeds from every aspect of it. Consistent Language, Fantastic Beginning, Cohesive Narrative and it proves its premise wonderfully. I say this is not just a collection of short stories. It is a novel.

On the surface level of this collection, we have human stories woven around a train attack. We explore humanity. We dive into the drama. Underneath the paint, Nana Sule expertly weaves in a far much bigger plot, one that actually crosses universes. A plot where a faction of supernatural beings has concocted a plan across several dimensions, involving multiple beings, to cause the reincarnation of Iblis.

This deep plot, this conspiracy has been hiding in shadows of the events surrounding the people.

It is brilliant. It is cheeky. It is intentional.

This book could serve as a prelude to what could be a long series. The Sword of Destiny to the Witcher Series. The world built here, the desires of the characters and what we learn about each dimension holds the seeds for a saga that may span centuries.

It speaks to the sheer brilliance of Nana Sule as a storyteller that she can concoct such a world that leaves room for several stories to form. Everywhere you look, there is fertile ground for drama. And the quality of the human drama she has displayed in this work is powerful enough to keep readers engaged until the resolution of this saga.

If you have someone who wants to start reading, this should be one of the first books you buy for them.

You can watch the Book Replay's chat with Nana Sule. She dropped by on her book tour. We learn a little about this amazing writer and clarify the messages she left for us in her book. Please check it out.

Thank you so much for watching. And this has been the Book Replay for Nana Sule's Not So Terrible People.

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