Vagabonds!: A Novel

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars | 93 ratings

Price: 15.75

Last update: 12-21-2024


About this item

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER

LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD

“If you read one debut novel in 2022, this should be it.” —Los Angeles Times

In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters—some haunted, some defiant—navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives.

As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.

Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Teri P
    5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Intriguing and Passionate
    Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2024
    This book is for anyone on the side or the fringe. Anyone questioning or feeling outside. It's for people seeking connection and authenticity. The stories are woven together beautifully.
  • Shazi L
    4.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, heartbreaking, beautiful, moving.
    Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2024
    This is such a unique novel! There are countless phrases and passages I highlighted throughout my read, full of language that moved my soul and my mind. While I did not necessarily understand every reference or dialect, the larger themes and lessons throughout these interwoven stories were apparent. As a queer Black American woman, this was a reading experience unlike any other I’ve experienced thus far. I will definitely be returning to selections and passages from this novel, and will look to other works of Osunde’s.
  • Elizabeth
    3.0 out of 5 stars strange book
    Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2023
    I loved some of the stories but I couldn’t quite understand what the whole book is about. Maybe it is too intellectual for me.
  • thelmathoughts
    5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for this
    Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2022
    Eloghosa, thank you for this. I appreciate the hard work and effort you put into this book. I will cherish it forever.
  • Seyi Agboola
    5.0 out of 5 stars Eloghosa creates such staggering, heart-filled, beautiful work
    Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2023
    For a debut or otherwise, this book will always be a 10/10 for me. I have multiple copies so I can lend them out for others, it's that good. The book gives vignettes of Lagosians that come together at the end to share powerful messages: to remember there is love at home, to know justice prevails, to keep in mind that flawed as you are, you are not a sin. What a book!
  • Mikel Norwitz
    4.0 out of 5 stars Oblique and magical stories
    Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2022
    Osunde presents a series of stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, featuring people who are outliers in many ways ... queer, neuroatypical, or artistic. Some of the stories are brilliant, others I couldn't quite grasp. The dusk jacket copy (this is a fault of the publisher's not the author's) indicates that the characters from the stories interweave, suggesting to me that this was actually a novel, which it isn't really ... there is some overlap at the end but in a staging that is so spiritual that it felt to me like it had little bearing on the original stories.

    For all that I was frequently befuddled there is a lot of beauty here, and readers who appreciate oblique and sometimes magical stories will certainly enjoy it.

    Three and a half stars.
  • robert j. baker
    1.0 out of 5 stars Incoherent
    Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2022
    The novel, line by line and overall is incoherent. That may reflect the despair and incoherence of the poor, the vast majority. The attacks against the tiny, mindless ruling families who get rich stealing from oil revenue are correct but also incoherent. If moral fervor alone made a good novel this would be a winner.
  • Holly Renee
    4.0 out of 5 stars I can’t stop thinking about this book
    Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2022
    The imagery of this book is astounding! For a U.S. reader, the dialog was a bit hard to understand until sounded out, but I don’t read books so I can feel comfortable… do you remember those days of film where every plot line wasn’t handed out to you on a platter? That you had to think about it and develop your own conclusions? This book takes us back to critical thinking. Not ready for critical thinking? Try Jennifer Weiner. I literally can’t stop thinking about this book a month after I finished it. Has an LGBTQ+ lean to it, and although I don’t identify in those ways, I found the book fascinating, titillating, and I was rooting for the narrators. So glad I picked this up randomly at the library— buying my own copy to re-read and share!

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