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Speak No Evil

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

In the long-anticipated novel from the author of the critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation, a revelation shared between two privileged teenagers from very different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with devastating consequences.

On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer—an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders—and the one person who seems not to judge him.

When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her own, however, Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed.

In the tradition of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Speak No Evil explores what it means to be different in a fundamentally conformist society and how that difference plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel about the power of words and self-identification, about who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for other people. As heart-wrenching and timely as his breakout debut, Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala's second novel cuts to the core of our humanity and leaves us reeling in its wake.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 4, 2017
      In Uzodinma’s staggering sophomore novel (after Beasts of No Nation), the untimely disclosure of a secret shared between two teens from different backgrounds sets off a cascade of heartbreaking consequences. The first of the book’s two sections follows Niru, a Nigerian-American high school senior and track star heading off to Harvard in the fall. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his immigrant parents, who are loving but traditional and strict. When they discover Tinder and Grindr messages from boys on Niru’s phone—apps Niru’s (white) best friend, Meredith, installed on a whim—a shocking, violent event occurs. To “undo this psychological and spiritual corruption,” Niru’s father beats him, then takes him to Nigeria to rid him of the “evil demonic spirit.” When Niru returns to school, he vows to stop his “sinful” behavior and make his father proud. But his desires still torment him—especially after he meets a handsome college-aged dancer named Damien. In the book’s devastating second half, a broken and haunted Meredith looks back on that tumultuous time six years later. Her Washington insider parents are moving to Massachusetts, and she’s returned from New York to help them move—and take care of unfinished business. The revelation of what happened the last time she saw Niru is devastating and speaks volumes about white heterosexual privilege. This novel is notable both for the raw force of Iweala’s prose and the moving, powerful story.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Prentice Onayemi performs the bulk of this timely story of immigration, sexual identity, and black profiling. Despite early acceptance to Harvard, Niru carries the burden of knowing how impossible it will be for him to fulfill his religious, successful Nigerian-born parents' idea of the American dream. Onayemi's sympathetic delivery captures Niru's double life using a light tone for the teen's outer persona as a good son, friend, and student and becoming more somber when the boy broods about his suppressed homosexuality and his own vision of the future. Onayemi's rendition of the Nigerian accents is believable and respectful. Julia Whelan's performance of the sections told by Niru's best friend, Meredith, emphasizes the girl's youth and difficulty dealing with her role in Niru's ultimate fate. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      October 1, 2017

      Iweala boomed into our consciousness in 2005 with his debut novel, Beasts of No Nation, a multi-award-winning and multi-best-booked title that got its author named a Granta Best of Young American Novelists. It was worth the wait for his second novel, featuring a Harvard-bound Nigerian American teenager at a prestigious Washington, DC, school, who wrestles with the recognition that he is gay. His friend Meredith is supportive, but the disapproval of his religious family leads to rapidly unwinding tragedy. Don't miss; there's gorgeous writing, crucial issues, and edge-of-seat emotions. With a 50,000-copy first printing

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • School Library Journal

      Starred review from November 1, 2018

      Niru laughs with his older brother about their father's "Nigeriatoma"-a word they made up to explain the "acute swelling of ego and pride" that turns Obi into a grandiose and aggressive man when he visits his native Nigeria. In the words of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in America, Obi "wears the mask" among the professional elite of Washington, DC. Modest and deferential, he and his wife Ify, a doctor, raise two sons who quietly excel. That is, until Niru, a high school senior, teetotaler, and track star headed for Harvard, admits that he's gay. While Ify surreptitiously schools herself online about parenting a gay child, Obi rushes Niru back to Nigeria for deprogramming by an Igbo priest. But Meredith-Niru's white female American best friend-helps Niru stay out of the closet, calling Obi's emergency Nigerian trip a "kidnapping." Iweala's (Beasts of No Nation) second novel is no less ambitious than his breakout debut. When someone drugs Meredith's drink at a graduation party, Niru must decide whether to risk his own safety to secure Meredith's. This work takes on not only the "beasts" of generational conflict and homophobia but also the hefty price of an interracial friendship in a violent American culture that proves more dangerous to Niru than his father's zipped-up rage. VERDICT A must-have.-Georgia Christgau, Middle College High School, Long Island City, NY

      Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      February 1, 2018
      Iweala's second novel, after Beasts of No Nation (2005), is a coming-of-age tale about immigrant identity and sexuality in America.Niru, an ambitious teenager, is in his senior year at a private high school in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Driven by his demanding Nigerian parents, he strives for success in both sports and academics. As he prepares to attend Harvard next year, trains to impress his track coach, and struggles to make a space for himself among his mostly white peers, he deftly reconciles his conflicting identities as the son of wealthy Nigerian immigrants and as an American teenager. There's turmoil rippling beneath his life's surface, though. When his closest friend, the attractive Meredith, tries to hook up with him, he panics and admits to himself that he's attracted to men. Meredith excitedly tries to help him embrace his sexuality, but Niru's impulses are unacceptable to his conservative Christian parents. After discovering flirtatious conversations with men on the boy's phone, Niru's father, Obi, takes him back to Nigeria to "cure" his son of what he considers "sinful nonsense." The scenes of Niru's clashes with his father are the most affecting moments in the novel: by depicting the fervor and violence of Obi's anger about Niru's queerness, Iweala does a stunning job of depicting the danger that many black youth face in trying to honor their sexual identities. Despite trying to suppress his desires and simplify his family life, Niru meets the seductive Damien. The two begin a tentative and tender relationship, but this is not a triumphant novel about Niru's embracing his sexual identity. Instead, Iweala gives us a novel of keen insight into the mental and emotional turmoil that attends an adolescent's discovery of his sexuality. Unfortunately, the book seems to lose steam toward its conclusion. Niru's relationship with Damien is not explored as fully as it could be, while the implications of his parents' pressure aren't entirely untangled. The novel resolves with the sudden and disjunctive insertion of another character's perspective, sabotaging the development of Niru's own subjectivity.This is a deeply felt and perceptive novel that does not fulfill its promise.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from December 1, 2017
      When Harvard-bound, Washington, D.C., prep-school senior Niru's parents discover the gay-dating app his best friend, Meredith, downloaded for him on his phone, everything blows up in his face like he knew it would. Although his Nigerian parents are fiercely loving, they are but bound by their faith, his father especially so, to reject Niru's queerness and seek religious therapy for his condition, both locally and in their ancestral home. In his third book, Iwealaauthor of the multiple-award-winning novel Beasts of No Nation (2005) and Our Kind of People (2012), a nonfiction book about people living with AIDS in Nigeriadelivers with immediate poignancy Niru's struggles between rejecting his parents' constrictions and yearning for them; between embracing his sexuality and believing there's a cure for it, and that it should be cured at all. Through Niru's narration, which forms the bulk of the book, he, his parents, and his brother, who's away at college but a constant presence in Niru's thoughts, become full and realistically nuanced characters. A later shift in narration allows a different and perhaps more complete picture of Niru, which Iweala also handles elegantly. Portraying cross-generational and -cultural misunderstandings with anything but simplicity, Iweala tells an essential American story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from November 15, 2017

      In Iweala's long-awaited follow-up to the multi-award-winning Beasts of No Nation, published in 2005 and made into a film released in 2015, a Harvard-bound Nigerian American teenager at a prestigious Washington, DC, school faces escalating issues of splintered identity. Not only is Niru black in a white world and an immigrant in America, but he's facing the realization that he is gay. Best friend Meredith is supportive, but Niru's religious parents explode when they find out; his mother may prevent his father from beating him, but she fully supports the plan to send him back to Nigeria to undergo spiritual cleansing. The trip is torture for Niru not only because his parents refuse to accept him ("What if I don't need help?" he asks them in anguish) but because Nigeria isn't home for him as it is for his father, who serves as heavyhanded escort. Back in America, Niru continues to seethe with doubt and longing as Iweala unwinds crucial issues of choice and the burden of playing multiple parts; says Niru, "It's too confusing for me to live all these lives when I want only one." Throughout a narrative spiraling toward tragedy, Niru's pain is so palpable it will make you gasp. VERDICT Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 9/11/17.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:960
  • Text Difficulty:5-6

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