The most positive thing I can say about this book is that it is very well written. The writing style is magnificent and it is easy and even pleasurable to read. Mengestu's writing is poetic.
Also, the book comes very well recommended by both the New York Times Book Review and by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner). It also made the "Notable Book of the Year" list in the New York Times Book Review.
The novel is about an Ethiopian immigrant named Sepha Stephanos who is trying to survive in the city of Washington D.C.. He owns a small store and lives in a low-rent apartment across the street in a run down part of the city. His two friends, Kenneth and Joseph (both also African immigrants) sporadically keep him company at his store where they share drinks and play a game where they quiz each other on the details of coups and bloodbaths and tyrannical dictators in Africa. He also makes friend with a neighbour, Judith and her daughter Naomi. Judith is one of the first white people to move into the predominantly black neighbourhood. Naomi is half black because her father was a black man from Mauritania.
That being said, I found the plot to be rather tedious. It doesn't progress; that's okay, the novel is mainly character driven. What can I say about the main character? Well, I sometimes felt sympathy for him but I was mostly annoyed at him. I kept waiting for one of the other characters to shake him by the shoulders and yell at him: "Sepha! Get over yourself!"
He immigrated to the United States after his father was murdered by a revolutionary militia during the Red Terror in Ethiopia during the 1970s. That's not the worst part--he was murdered because the militiamen found flyers in his house advertising anti-revolutionary meetings being held at a secret location; the flyers actually belonged to Sepha, who was spared because his father refused to say who the flyers belonged to. Okay, that's pretty scarring and I can imagine the emotional damage caused by such trauma. So now I seem like a black-hearted tool for wanting to tell him to get over himself.
Let me explain myself. When Sepha first comes to Washington D.C., he lives with his Uncle Berhane, who also fled to the United States during the revolution. In Ethiopia, Berhane was a wealthy bureaucrat but in Washington D.C. he drives a taxi and works late into the evening at menial jobs. Uncle Berhane is one of the most admirable characters in the novel. (Read it, you'll agree with me.) Sepha sleeps on Berhane's couch. His main goal is to go back to Ethiopia. What does he plan to do when he gets back? It's not clear. He just wants to go back. Uncle Berhane gets him a job as a bellhop at the Capitol Hotel. It's hard work, but it pays exceptionally well. While he works there, Sepha meets Kenneth and Joseph who are also bellhops. The three become lifelong friends. Later, Uncle Berhane convinces Sepha to go to University. So, Sepha enrolls into an engineering program at a local university. But he doesn't finish. He drops out. And quits his job at the Capitol Hotel. To go back to Ethiopia? No. He buys a small grocery store in a run down neighbourhood with a small business bank loan and moves into an apartment across the street. At first he is enthusiastic but gradually, he neglects his store more and more until it fails to make any profit. Then he wallows in self-pity because the store is doing poorly. He sleeps with prostitutes, spends odd evenings drinking with Kenneth and Joseph while they either argue about poetry, politics, business, economics, or their personal lives. If they're not arguing, they're playing a game where they make each other guess the details surrounding various African dictatorships. His life at this point is characterized by inaction. He does nothing to save his store or better himself. He gets up and opens his store, or sleeps in and keeps his store closed until he feels like getting up and walking across the street and opening the store. Some days, he stays home all day doing very little, if anything. And the store across the street slowly dies.
When Judith moves to his neighbourhood and makes friends with him, he bonds easily with her daughter Naomi. Romance begins to bud between Judith and Sepha. Judith and Naomi offer him a chance to become someone. At first, his enthusiasm is renewed. He cleans out the store and redecorates it, he starts to keep regular hours again. But then he lets his insecurities get offended by just about everything Judith is and does, then he alternately pushes her away and runs away from her. He refuses to be honest with her while acknowledging to himself the damage he is doing both to himself and their relationship, but he refuses to let go of his insecurities. Then he feels sorry for himself that things aren't working out with Judith and goes back to neglecting his store. At this point it's something like twenty years since he has moved to Washington and he is no closer to going back to Ethiopia, although he's always talking about it when he's with Kenneth and Joseph.
Okay, maybe I'm being a little hard on Sepha. I do feel sypathy for him. But, to me, if the novel shows anything, it shows how destructive self-pity can be and that's about all I've got to say.
