Nearly All The Lagos Men Are Mad by Damilare Kuku( Book Review)

 

Nearly All The Men In Lagos are Mad

Damilare Kuku

Masobebooks|2021

172 pages

12 stories

Short story collection

Nigerian literature

Lagos lifestyle, queerness, magnates, sex, love, heartbreak, music, art, feminism, youthfulness.

🚫 only for readers above 18.

🔺lot of steamy scenes

After seeing this in a lot of pretty pictures all over Nigerian Bookstagram I decided to read it, because well it started entering my eyes. And I like short story collections.

 Nearly All The Men In Lagos are Mad, is a beautiful short story collection with varying topics and themes. All humorous, realistic, and has this distinct Nigerian style. I liked the use of Nigerian English and slang and jargon. It is a book by a real Lagosian for Lagosians.

I will be reviewing and rating each story.

I like to keep my blog posts short, quick , easy and fun to read. So...I will be quick but detailed about each of the 12 stories, there will be excerpts too.

Cuck-UP

One night, you will calmly put a knife to your husband’s penis and promise to cut it off. It will scare him so much that the next day, he will call his family members for a meeting in the house. He will not call your family members, but you will not care. You won’t need them.

    

   I guess that was enough to absorb me into the short story collection. Because it had me wondering why she wanted to cut her husband's penis. I liked the use of second-person narration. Kuku seemed to use that a lot.

The Gigolo from Isale Eko

I can see this is your first time at a bachelor party for Iggy? How do I know? I organised the two previous ones and I didn’t see you there. Yes, this is the third bachelor party I’ve thrown for Iggy. And knowing him, I suspect I’ll throw at least three more for him before we grow old and die. Even worse, I fear my hell in the afterlife will be to throw bachelor

What narration style is this? First person? It is the first person I guess, but wow I have never seen this narration style used this way before , I like it, it was able to hold my attention. I think this is a mix with an unreliable style of narration. We never know for sure what Iggy really is. This was my least favourite story I think.

The Anointed Wife

Do you think it is easy to be a pastor’s wife? How can you know what it means to be the partner of a man with a divine calling, made of flesh but instructed to lead with the spirit? Any ordinary wife has their work cut out for them in loving their husbands, in serving them for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, but a pastor’s wife has to help her husband maintain his holy anointing, and to do so with an invisible hand.

Uh…

I'm sceptical about this. I don't think I liked  it. Frankly I don't think it is a good idea to be doing the thrusting when you can have your own damn fucking life. Anyways I will not be adding spoilers.

International Relations

I’m tired of Lagos men. Nearly all of them are mad. Awon weyrey! The standard Lagos-Man package comes with lying, cheating, and occasional scamming; alongside stylish kaftans, splashes of Sauvage or Ouds, and fake accents. See, they’ve shown me so much pepper in this my short life, I’ve finally seen the light—it’s bright, and so white. By white, I mean oyibo. Yes, I’m going international and not looking back.

This was my favourite. It was really funny and youthful and I liked the vibe. This is the story where the title comes from.

Ode-Pus Complex

“Young lady, please I need you to exchange seats with my son,” said the woman sitting beside Jide on the plane. Jide was listening to Burna Boy’s new song, so she wasn’t sure she heard right. The woman tapped her lightly and she took off her earpiece. “Ma?” “Please, can you exchange seats with my son?” She was greying…

Ugh...as much as I liked that Jide didn't stay with Uche… I didn't like the story very much. Also I couldn't help but notice that Jide had a name like Damilare. Besides I thought she was a male until I looked her up.

A Lover’s Vendetta

If we ever meet again, only one of us will leave the encounter unharmed. If I don’t kill you, I will leave a mark so deep and prominent on your body, people will cross the road for you. Anybody with sense will look at the mark and know that only a worthless person will do something deserving of such a scar. They will be as pitiless with you as you were with me for four years, Dele.

The anger in this story is boiling! Ha! The only thing I liked about this story was that it was realistic and sort of female empowering.

First Times

You were sixteen the first time you had sex. It was at a dingy motel in Bariga, manned by a receptionist with a dirty white shirt. The room was at the end of a corridor that reeked of weed. Inside, Idris grumbled, “Can you imagine? This people don’t have AC. Only fan. I paid five thousand naira for fan?” You wondered why he was complaining about the money, when you were the one who had given it to him before you got to….

I am indifferent about this story frankly

Catfish

As the driver turns into Ikeja GRA, I feel my dick rise in excitement. I’m not going home to Magodo, even when I know that my boys will be waiting for me. I have other ideas, thanks to Dooshima, my Instagram baddie. I got back into Lagos barely an hour ago, having cut short my six-month music tour. When I started this music thing, people laughed at me. They made fun of everything

I think I liked this too. It was actually fun.

Side-Lined

Ambition is life-blood for girls like you, second-nature. A gateway to a successful life that has very specific dimensions: the respect and envy of others, the support and validation of friends and family, and the love and devotion of the man of your choosing. After the business hustle crashed, sure you were sad, but you changed track and started applying in earnest for any and every job you could find, whether you were truly qualified or not. Until your life took a sudden, unexpected turn.

 

Beard Gang

Your phone beeped at a few minutes past midnight. You glanced at it. The message read: He says he is leaving me. HELP!!!! It was from Flora. You sighed softly, irritated because you’d asked that no one send a message past 10 p.m. But it was just like Flora, the twit, to disobey simple instructions. It crossed your mind that she may have been distressed when she sent the message, but you remembered

I Knew You

Some things are easier to have than to hold on to, you get? Like wealth. Like friendship. Like love. Finding love is easy. I’m not a bad looking guy, I have my ways, my tricks. Women have always come, and they have gone. I’m easy to get, but not easy to tie down, you see. And all women, at some point, want a down payment. An assurance. Something concrete. A ring, a house . . . my last name. And that part, that last part, is the hard one

Independence Day

On what you would ordinarily consider a perfect day, you ran into the man who raped you. Usually, you loved early-October days like these. The rainy season was ending, the dry one was about to start. Last night’s rains gifted a soothing cool to today. The sky held no clouds and wore its purest blue. And though the sun was bright, it gave no heat and, strangely, reminded you of the flawless sunny-side-up eggs Lekan…

I think the stories that made up the book weren't exactly spectacular or depth full. But they exactly mirrored Lagos lifestyle and society and that made them special.

A dozen satires that were funny, quick and witty.

 Although I struggled reading through, I still love what Kuku made with her characters and stories. I wonder if she went through those experiences herself. I couldn't help but notice that she has a name like Jide in the Ode-pus Complex, for a while I thought Kuku was male until I looked her up on Instagram, and found a pretty woman.

Uhhh, 14/20?

 It was a fun read tho✨