Smells Like Stars

by D. Nandi Odhiambo

Journalist Kerstin Ostheim and freelance photographer P.J. Banner have been together six months after meeting on a dating website. As their wedding fast approaches, they question their compatibility while investigating mysterious horse killings taking place in Ogweyo's Cove, the Pacific tourist haven where they live.

In the meantime, Schuld Ostheim, Kerstin's transgender daughter from her first marriage, is preparing for an art exhibit after being hospitalized for a physical assault while her boyfriend, Woloff, an Olympic medalist in the 1500m, comes to terms with a career-ending knee injury. As Kerstin and P.J. get closer to the truth about the dead horses, they also begin to more clearly see each other. Simultaneously, Schuld's and Woloff's pasts come back to haunt them, jeopardizing their sense of a possible future.

Ultimately, Smells Like Stars draws attention to what is hidden in plain sight, what cruelties life presents, and what struggles we face in our search for meaning.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

D. Nandi Odhiambo is the author of four novels: Smells Like Stars (Book*hug Press, 2018), The Reverend's Apprentice (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2008), Kipligat's Chance (Penguin Canada, 2003; St. Martin's Press, 2004), and diss/ed banded nation (Polestar Press, 1998). He is the recipient of the 2018 Elliot Cades Award for Literature and serves as a Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu. His most recent book, The Minoritarian and Black Reason: A Philosophico-Literary Investigation, a work of literary criticism, was published by Lexington Books in 2021. His next novel, Amapiano Eyes, is scheduled for publication by Book*hug Press in Spring 2026.

Reviews

[Richard Stange · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel illuminated many themes such as economical inequality and animal cruelty (and the lives of other animals not valued as high as that if human). However, no theme is more prevalent in this novel than that of the struggles suffered by the LGBTQ community in society. Intolerance and the complete unwillingness to accept the gender identity of non binary individuals permeates throughout this novel, and is exemplified when Mrs. Ostheim told Schuld that “She doesn’t want to pretend that I’m a woman and she worries that I’m messing up my life” (Odhiambo 189).

[Rita Maqdas Khoury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing story, it would be more great if the author specified the events happened in Germany, and wrote about the characters background. Also there were words in Germany and the translation is written down on the bottom of the book... It should simply be in English, I had to check the translation everytime it was within the sentence.

[Eric Hortop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tasty prose and characters that I sometimes felt drawn to, but a bit disorienting in many ways, between the pacing, the density of things going on, and the steady drumbeat of footnoted translations. It feels both playful and a bit deliberately hard.

[Shadi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Promising start and tackles issues no one dares touches.

It's romeo and juliet modernized. It left me with no real impressions with the characters though their brokenness reminds me of the unjustice society places on being perfect and being part of the norm. As we move one step forward, two steps backwards.

Rating is 2.5

[Kassandra Dishlevoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

some interesting themes going on here and it kept me engaged for sure but I am a bit disappointed in the ending cause I’m not really understanding what happened?

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel which weaves its way through different cultures by way of an ersatz Hawai’i, and deftly balances despair with hope.