From the Publisher
"A dozen interlinked, music-oriented stories set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where Garricks was raised... Each songlike story feels like a breakout hit encapsulating the brokenness and the beauty in life’s soundtrack." — Booklist (starred review)
"These stories will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page." — SheReads, Best Book Club Pick of Spring 2023
"A Broken People’s Playlist is an addictive collection of authentic prose. Story after story made me stop to reflect on the complexities of life, our various loves––be it family, friendship or romance––and the way we’re all connected. Elegant, graceful and full of understanding, Garrick’s writing unwraps stories that touch the soul and make you glad to be part of the human race." — Bisi Adjapon, author of The Teller of Secrets and Daughter in Exile
"This is a beautifully woven set of short stories, each of which are inspired by a beloved pop song. . . . It’s a compelling format with little margin for error and which, if executed correctly, works to magnificent effect. Thankfully, Garricks is a supreme storyteller, and he manages to take us on an absorbing tour of joy and loss. Each of his tales is to be savoured; each concept has the depth of a novel. . . . A magical delight." — Hari Kunzru, award-winning author of White Tears
Library Journal
03/31/2023
Set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, these stories are linked by the songs that form the playlist of their creation and by recurring characters. Garricks (author of the debut novel Tomorrow Died Yesterday) focuses on middle- and upper-middle-class Nigerians, businessmen and professionals enriched by the oil boom with the means to have been educated in Great Britain or to have sent their children there. "Lost Stars" (inspired by Adam Levine) concerns two on-again, off-again lovers whose decision to finally commit is unexpectedly shattered. The wrenching "Hurt" (inspired by Johnny Cash) is about a thirtyish man dying of cancer who holds a living funeral for himself and intensely desires that his ex-wife attend, despite having physically abused her during their marriage. The wry "I Put a Spell on You" (inspired by Nina Simone) takes place at a gathering of friends where one confesses that he feels his wife has hexed him because he is now unable to perform sexually with his lovers, while another decides finally to marry his pregnant longtime partner. VERDICT Garricks's Nigeria is a land broken by rapid change, and his characters have been broken psychologically and spiritually by it as well, living lives filled with longing and disappointment and seeking an ever-elusive redemption.—Lawrence Rungren
Kirkus Reviews
2023-01-25
Snapshots of failed romances and busted families in Nigeria.
Each of the dozen stories in Garricks’ first collection, he explains in an author’s note, takes its title from and was inspired by a particular song, mostly by rock and R&B artists like Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, U2, and more. None of those songs are directly referenced in their accompanying stories, but the rubric serves to capture a mood and emphasize a kind of pop sensibility in the writing—Garricks aspires to craft straightforward, tightly composed studies in heartbreak. In “Music,” a 17-year-old aspiring DJ uses the dance floor to undermine his father, who left the family when he was young. The narrator of “Hurt” recalls a dying friend’s efforts to arrange and attend his own funeral before he passes. In “I’d Die Without You,” a man contemplates the aftermath of his wife’s miscarriage, while the protagonists of “Beautiful War” and “Desperado” are each facing the consequences of their infidelities. Most of the (lightly linked) stories are set in or around Port Harcourt, a Nigerian city that’s a center for the country's petroleum industry, which offers metaphorical opportunities to explore wealth and its abuse; a number of stories also turn on the “confras,” or violent fraternities at the state university. The stories demonstrate the shortcomings of that pop sensibility—a repetitiveness creeps in, as does some sentimental prose. (“I felt the bird’s wings beating furiously where my heart used to be.”) But there are welcome moments when Garricks tweaks the formula: “In the City” is a more ambitious and tragic story involving corrupt police officers and a case of mistaken identity, and in the comic “I Put a Spell on You,” a man is consumed with paranoia over his wife’s possibly undermining his sexual performance with everyone but her.
Well-turned tales of love and loss, though often playing familiar refrains.
