Drum: READS
99
Fitzgerald’s Wood by David Nwokedi
Jonathan Cape, £10.99
Hardback, 256 pages
In the name of the father
It’s often said that you shouldn’t judge a book
by its cover. But is the same true of the ‘ blurb’
on the back? Matt Taylor takes a look at a first
novel by Brighton-based social worker, David
N wokedi.
Fitzgerald is a teenage boy who
lives in Wistful, a small town some
30 minutes south of London, with
his white British mother, Pauline,
and his carpentry-loving father
who has hands like oars and skin
the colour of afrormosia wood.
Fitzgerald’s father, whose name we
never learn, is of Nigerian descent
although his own mother refuses
to reveal exactly who his father
was and he has never visited Africa
himself. Although a quiet man, his
feelings run deep, in particular his
sense of alienation living so far
from
Africa.
Perhaps
in
compensation for this painful
identity crisis, Fitzgerald’s father
instils in his son the need to be
‘proud to be African’, though he
never really tells him why or how.
When his father is knocked down
and killed by a lorry, the family
gathers to decide where his ashes
should be put to rest. Appearing in
spirit, but only to his son,
Fitzgerald’s father makes it known
that his ashes should be scattered
in Africa, leading his son on a trip
of
potential
self-discovery,
accompanied by the mysterious
Hyacinth, an old crone whom
Fitzgerald meets at the
hospital whilst waiting
to identify his father’s
body.
The publisher’s blurb
promises a tale of ghost
hunters, angels, spirits
and other remarkable characters in
a ‘highly original story rich with
wonder and wisdom’, and there’s
little question that the book
delivers a cast of eccentric
personalities, but where it falls
down is in orchestrating them into
the telling of a coherent story
around its stated central t