Vagabonds!

This essay is a review of Vagabonds!, Eloghosa Osunde’s recent novel.

How a book finds you inevitably colours your experience of it, and this one was seeded in two scenes: first in Daniel’s apartment, him full of praise and anticipation for its release; and then at Nwando’s, where I got to flip through an early copy, the author close-by in another room.

There are simple and good and straightforward and well-behaved people, I’m sure. But this is not a book about them.

Vagabonds! is, first, a collection of love stories: about Johnny and Livinus, Toju and Agbon, Daisy and Divine, Nkem and Hauwa, Wura and Adura, and all the people who can relate.

It’s a book about secret, indecent, illegal love. And in journeying to the upside-down world in which this kind of love can exist, it shares a glimpse into the underbelly of the city, Èkó.

Consequently, Vagabonds! is also a book about Lagos. And no one better to tell this side of the story than the city’s monitoring spirit, Tatafó.

There are a lot of characters in this book, but if you’ve lived long enough in the city, you’ve probably met all of them. A driver. A fashion designer. A bouncer. A housegirl and her madam.

What you don’t know though — and what Eloghosa narrates with the authority of a journalist— are the stories of who and how they love. The women are more colourful than the men, but all the stories are carefully weaved and graciously told.

The book is very allegorical, with tales of cityspirits and their goings-on. This poetry makes it easy for the author to talk about the city’s ills — crime, corruption, domestic violence, bloodshed — while keeping it light.

Vagabonds! is also a time capsule, as Eloghosa’s use of casual pidgin and cultural references like Odunsi (The Engine) and Netflix often feel like a deliberate attempt to capture the zeitgeist.

Now that I’m done reading, whatever flaws I thought I found are easily forgotten. What remains are the memories of those electric characters, particularly Wura Blackson and Rain.

I read two books this summer: Vagabonding, given to me by Caroline, in turn given to her by a former colleague; and Vagabonds!.

Perhaps the only common ground between the similarly titled but very different books is that they were both written for people who wander, who find home in those they meet along on the way.

And in that sense, I can relate.