PECKERWOOD BOOK CLUB: Dialogue Problems, Plus "The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa!"

Greetings, Peckerwood Book hors! Summertime's a fun time to catch up on your Guilt Pile™ - or that stack of novels on your nightstand that you have yet to read. Plus, there's always time for more, isn't there? As for literary novels, I have a major pet peeve: the pretentious style of dialogue formatting wherein the open-and-close quote marks are not used. Confused? Me, too. Normally, dialogue formatting goes like this: 

"Trump is a cunt," said Fiona, a charming Scottish lass. "He started out as a bit of a numptie, but now - aye! - he can just piss off and eat me dick." Callum nodded his head, for he, too, found Trump intolerable. 

"Bet he smells, too." 

Easy to read, right? But blowhard literary types do this: 

Trump is a cunt, said Fiona, a charming Scottish lass. He started out as a bit of a numptie, but now - aye! - he can just piss off and eat me dick. Callum nodded his head, for he, too, found Trump intolerable. Bet he smells, too. 

Without standard quotation marks, your mind halts - briefly and unnecessarily, and much more so than the sample above might suggest when they're absent throughout an entire novel. Punctuation matters, just as flow matters. Again, there's no reason for this except to draw attention to the writer, to their desire to be dIfFeReNt, and, I suppose, to slow you down a bit, all the better for you to appreciate their precious writerly gifts. To all of those Brooklyn-based writers or college lit professors with one or two small press novels to their credit, I say, "Knock it off. You're only impressing your mother." Feel free to quote me on this. Are there any tics or overly-mannered writing styles that bother you?

Meanwhile, literary debuts are seldom as stunning as "The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa" by Stephen Buoro. Introducing Andy, a hopeful Nigerian teenager and poet, the novel swiftly dramatizes his ongoing internal demons, including his secret yearning for a blonde girlfriend - which runs counter to his pained self-loathing and aversion towards his own mother’s Blackness. Moreover, he and his teen friends find themselves struggling to survive in a country rife with deadly Muslims rioters.

Despite its sometimes tragic turns, this compelling coming-age-age story is unusually agile, making room for brief flights of fantasy, satire and the absorbing comedy of Andy’s relationship with his friends. They include Morocca, a boisterous teen DJ and aspiring rap star who finds himself saddled with an adoring infant girl, and Patience, his insolent fifteen-year-old wife; and Slim, his gay teen friend whom he and Morocca accept without reservation, and who yearns to live openly. 

There's also his mother Gloria, whose fierce devotion to her son propels much of Andy’s personal growth, despite his rebellious animosity. For her part, Eileen is an endearing, even awkward, object of desire for Andy, and their coupling, born of their joint love of poetry and literature, feels both highly idealized and sweetly plausible. Also noteworthy is Fatima, who connects with Andy intellectually, but not romantically, much to her aching despair; and Zahrah, a schoolteacher whom many in town believe is a witch given her supernatural faith, and who dubs Andy, “Andy Africa.” Like John Fante's coming-of-age classic, "Ask The Dust," "The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa" may well be one for the ages. 

What have you been reading lately? Your learned Bibliophile Bendy Boy™ is looking for recommendations - and if you dare recommend a novel without proper dialogue formatting, he will put on his clothes, toss back his hair and leave the room for good. And really, no one wants that. 

Photo Credit: Bloomsbury; Getty Images