The Okiedoke by Sidik Fofana, 2017
The magic trick:
A first-person narrator who is telling two stories – external and internal – at the same time
Day two of our weeklong look at the Stories From the Tenants Downstairs collection.
One of the most magical of magic tricks Fofana pulls off in this book is the ability to write eight stories in the first person with eight different people narrating. A lot of writers dabble in first person, of course, but they often use the same character or at least the same type of character throughout their collection.
Not here.
Eight stories, eight totally different kinds of people.
“The Okiedoke” is told from the point of view of Swan, who already showed up in the collection’s first story through the eyes of his ex.
It’s an especially challenging narration because not only does the writer have to believably embody the character, this story also hinges on the nagging wishes the narrator doesn’t verbalize to his friends.
Swan, in this story, sees the then-recent election of Obama as perhaps the kind of seismic shift – or at least personally inspiring change – that could open up his own limited existence. But those ideas are in direct contrast to who he feels he needs to be around his friends as they continue to revel in the things that make their own limited existences semi-tolerable in the short term.
So, what we have is a first-person narration that is communicating on two levels at the same time to the reader.
And that’s quite a trick on Fofana’s part.
The selection:
So I say, Miller.
And he say to me, What?
You blockin the TV.
He move, and Boons change the subject.
What you been into?
Us? Miller say to him all jokey. We holdin it down. You know me. Still gettin head every day. Still smokin the good good obviously. Mama in my ear like, Go get you a job. Had me feelin guilty about that shit.
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