A BROKEN PEOPLE’S PLAYLIST

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.