Gregoire Nakobomayo doesn’t have the easiest start to life. As an abandoned
child he is raised by a series of foster families, until an incident that
puts him on the run. From then he will live on the streets and must learn
to survive. Gregoire’s story is expertly woven into the current tale
of his plan to commit murder.
AFRICAN PSYCHO is a journey inside a disturbed mind. Through a chilling first-person
narrative Mabanckou takes us right inside Gregoire so that we get his raw
thought and understand him and his life. The book begins with the line, “I
have decided to kill Germaine on December 29. I have been thinking about this
for weeks – whatever one may say about it, killing someone requires
both psychological and logistical preparedness.” From there we begin
to understand Gregoire’s story, how he came to this point in his life,
what experiences have contributed to how he thinks and lives and why he aspires
to be a murderer.
This is definitely not a cozy read and there are parts that will disturb some
people, AFRICAN PSYCHO is a thoroughly engrossing tale. The heavy subject
matter is balanced by the hilarious African names, such as the town He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot.
There is also a subtle commentary running through the book that touches on
how societies deal with unwanted children and prejudice, not just between
cultures but also between classes of people.
This translated work has earned Mabanckou accolades and awards, and rightly
so. This story is disturbing yet captivating. Gregoire is a character that
one would think they wouldn’t be empathize with. How do you understand
someone who has chosen to kill another person, how do you relate to someone
who worships a serial killer? Yet Mabanckou not only succeeds in making Gregoire
believable and real, he leaves you unsure if you should be happy or disappointed
by the outcome. I don’t mean I was anticipating the execution of the
plan – it’s more that at the end of the book I could imagine how
Gregoire must have felt and I was left worrying about what would happen to
him.
A must read for lovers of hardboiled noir.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Sandra Ruttan's debut novel, Suspicious Circumstances, was released
in January 2007. Her short fiction has appeared in Out of
the Gutter, Demolition, Mouth Full
of Bullets, Crimespree Magazine, The
Cynic and Spinetingler. For more information
visit her website.
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