This book is one of those books that, no matter how intense and devastating its content, is written so well that you just don't want it to end. Abani's prose is so effortless and fluid, you can't help but be drawn into the world he's created. In this case, Lagos, Nigeria in the early 1980s, with flashbacks a few years earlier. We follow Elvis (his real name), a Nigerian teenager who longs to dance and do his Elvis impersonation (what commentary on internal colonization in that one characteristic...

I loved my journey with this book. I was especially fond of the way Oye speaks. Elvis is a flawed boy that you can't help but love. The story leaves you ramsacked, you feel like a shipwreck. At least that's how I felt while living Elvis' life. An honest account of the flaws of humanity. An unflinching account of the imperfections of human relationships. What a story!

Amazingly written, very dark and violent at times.

Story about a young man trying to get by in Lagos slums in the 1980s. I liked the feel vivid sense it gave of Nigeria at that time. I didn't find the main character's voice so probable, though, which is why I think I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.

I think you can judge this book by its cover. The ten year old smoking the cigarette says as much about Chris Abani's over-stated portrait of poverty in Lagos as any of the prose within. While I certainly think it's about time a mass-market paperback about the current conditions in industrialized West Africa, Abani presents his critique of American imperialism within a whole lot of artistry or subtlety. It's Things Fall Apart, Part Deux, without the poetry that Chinua Achebe brings to his charac...

"Writers are dangerous," so says A.S. Byatt, and when you read Chris Abani you see exactly how the truth can kill. Abani's stories show us life balanced on the blade of a knife. His novel, Graceland, chronicles a dark page of Nigeria's history as we follow a young boy learning to live and love in the turbulent eighties. Graceland opens with a nod to Langston Hughes' "A Dream Deferred." Elvis, our young Nigerian protagonist, desperately wants to be a dancer, and in the midst of war and political

This was one of the most exhausting, over-written, and absurd books I have ever read. If it wasn't required reading for a class I would have put it down in the first few pages. This is the fourth novel I have read about the Biafran Civil War/its aftermath, and by far the worst. I'm not saying it's only because it was written by a man, but that definitely feels like a factor. I have three major complaints: 1) The writing is bizarrely uneven, redundant, wooden, and all-over-the-place. This is not

I had lunch with Chris Abani last week. He came to the university where I work to speak to a room full of international students, and over a delectable plate of Southern soul food, he told stories. And he can definitely do that.Abani is a professor at Northwestern, a Nigerian native as big as an NFL defensive tackle. But in a soft voice that reminds me of brushed velvet, he can talk forever about the intricacies of language, writing and words. And that's what surprised me. Because after finishin...

This is probably what made Ben Okri write that article criticising African novelists for writing too much about suffering. GraceLand is just poverty/suffering porn. nothing more. Just when you thought life in this novel was bad enough , Abani still managed to make it more depressing. This was the only thing he got right. The dialogue also made me think I was reading a Nollywood script. I didn't even finish it. tueh!

Any of the beauty of the language in this book was marred to me by the author's seeming desire to pack the novel with the most tragedy he possibly could. I understand that this was a troubling and difficult time in the country's history, but by the end of the book it was like an absurdist comedy, and I just wanted it to be over, as opposed to feeling deeply effected and moved, as I suppose was the intent.

This novel blew me away! Abani has written such a harrowing story that just yanked on my emotions. I really can't describe the story because there was so much contained in its 300 pages. It's certainly not for the faint of heart!

In the very first scene of the book, when the protagonist Elvis is awoken by a pounding Nigerian rainstorm, we read this:The book he had fallen asleep reading, Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man", fell from his side to the floor, the old paperback cracking at the spine, falling neatly into two halves as precisely as if sliced by a sword.That's the kind of first-scene statement that has symbolism written all over it. Here is what Abani tells Tayari Jones about the scene in an April 2004 interview in

I enjoyed this book. A tragic but engaging story about Elvis, a young man who dreamed of becoming a dancer. However, his move to Lagos with his family was followed by a series of horrific experiences that buried that dream. I particularly enjoyed the dialogue in this novel. Realistic and hilarious. I didn’t understand the need for all the POV switches and interruptions to write food recipes. In my opinion, it dampened the flow of this great story that deserves 5 stars.I recommend this book.

It's hard to be a man, Elvis Oké's father tells him. The measure of a man used to be his good name, and he has to be prepared to defend that name - his honour - against anything, from outside or inside.Names play a part in this, yes. Elvis father is named Sunday, his best friend is named Redemption, and Elvis himself is of course named Elvis. That's about all they have left, it seems; they live in a shanty town in Lagos, Nigeria, and if there's any meaning to the fact that Sunday is a drunk to w...

The audiobook is not where it's at.

This is a coming of age story of a Nigerian idealistic boy, raised in poverty, but trying to make his was in the world. Although very difficult to read at times, due to horrid scenes of abuse, the book has a humorous side to it as well especially when it pokes fun at the effects of Western pop culture on traditional life in Nigeria.

I have mixed feelings about this book and while I’m glad I read it, it’s a difficult book to recommend to anyone. I’d say one of the main weaknesses is an inconsistency in tone throughout the book. Abani veers all over the place and the book alternates between passages that are broadly satirical and comical to lurid and disturbing passages that involve incest, child rape, and torture. There are also times when Abani’s anger towards the corruption and oppression in his native country results in d...

A writer of extraordinary power, Abani delivers a novel which deserves to be read and re-read. Elvis Oke, our adaptable teenage protagonist, represents the heart of the story and the very spirit of Nigeria. Five solid stars. It is a novel to be discovered— not for me to tell you about.

Maybe I took too long reading it. This started out as a five star read but toward the end I began to feel annoyed with the Elvis character. And some other things. Which unfortunately affected my enjoyment of the book. I really struggled to finish, which is a shame, since Abani created quite the grand finale. I'm sad that it fizzled for me.

"the rest of the night was a restless one for elvis. To start with, his room was leaking: not tame drip-drops but a steady stream of water that filled the bucket placed in the middle of the floor in a few minutes. He gave up trying to empty it, and as it overflowed, he settled down and prepared to be flooded out. It wouldn't be the first time. The steady dribble of water provided a soothing background to fall asleep to.Just as his first snore broke through, he was woken by steady splashes in the...