A review by peiji
Dealing with the Dead by Alain Mabanckou

2.75

Thank you to NetGalley and The New Press for providing the ARC of Dealing with the Dead by Alain Mabanckou. 

Cultural and spiritual explorations of death and the afterlife are always fascinating to me, and I have been interested in finding more works and upcoming fiction by African authors. Dealing with the Dead is the first novel that I have read set in the Republic of the Congo. 

What I enjoyed most about this book is that there is no over-explaining or hand-holding in regards to the political history, geography, and cultural setting of Pointe-Noire. I felt drawn in by the descriptions of the city, the food, and the tight familial bond between Liwa and his grandmother as the central two characters of this story. 

The drawback of the novel is that I found the narrative structure quite difficult to follow - with large interruptions of back-tracking in plot, or pages-long monologues of characters. In addition, despite the novel being written in second-person, I often did not feel pulled into the perspective or shoes of Liwa due to the disorientation of the structure and these monologues. There was also not so much of a mystery or climax element building up to the truth of Liwa’s death, which was quite disappointing for me.

Overall, I think that I was going into this novel anticipating the pomp and style along the lines of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, with the mention of Liwa’s outfit. It would have been wiser on my end to have first further educated myself on the history of the Congo and Central Africa before delving into this novel.