Fresh Air is a collection of sixteen engaging and quite diverse short stories. They mirror the Nigerian life home and away. From the experiences
of Nigerians living abroad to those coming home and all, there is a whole lot explored. ‘Funeral Arrangement’ is the story of Bekwele whose father has passed on. Being the man abroad, there are huge expectations on his neck. He comes home to Nigeria to do the funeral arrangements. He notices that his brother is doing very well wearing the latest designers, living large and generally enjoying himself. This is puzzling to Bekwele who has been living a stringent life to ensure his people at home do well. Everyone expects Bekwele to give his father a grand funeral fit for a King. No one considers helping with anything and one demands after another keeps dropping. The young man gets into a spot and soon makes some transformations that would leave readers smiling. The hall mark of this story as in others that go on is Reward’s use of humour to colour a near bleak situation. Still, there is only a slight hint of humour here. It is when you get to ‘Diary of a Troubled Traveller‘ that you find the humour fairy dashing fair sprays of laughing dust into the air. The traveller in that tale takes a wrong combo of a meal while in transit and the journey to the toilet becomes the centre of the tale as opposed to that of the communal road to Lagos where the bus is headed. ‘One Champion’s League Night’ tells the tale of a thug turned born-again who has to become unborn just once to set things right. Tale after tale, you find yourself laughing and laughing and laughing. But it isn’t a clown affair all through. There are touching tales in the collection like ‘The Conversation’ where a man thinks about his late wife and how he might have saved her. ‘Keeping Mum’ is the tale of a young girl whose guardians beat her in an effort to find out who impregnated her. The revelation comes at the end and the abrupt surprise is such as to leave you wondering at people.
Reward’s stories are diverse and in many cases, deep. He captures reality on many fronts and does not hide the tragedy of life. He mixes his tragedy however with a healthy dose of laughter here and there. His stories have this Niger-Delta feel to them much like Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Northern Nigerian feel in The Whispering Trees. Fresh Air and other stories shows the roundedness of the Nigerian story. It visits the tales of the poor, the rich, the local, the exposed, the expatriate, the loved, the hated, the cared for and even the forlorn. The characters are realistic and you can almost feel them. The book demonstrates the well-travelled nature of author and his rich experiences in life. There are memorable characters from all works of life spanning some three or so continents. Reward is not afraid to tell the Nigerian story but he does not make it as pitiful and one-sided as most other African writers would of their own societies.
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You can read three great stories from the collection, ‘The Testimony’ and ‘Diary of a Troubled Traveller’ (discussed above) in full. There’s also the beginning excerpt of ‘Forensic Investigation’ here. Find Fresh Air and other stories on Amazon here.
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