Seesaw

by Timothy Ogene

A 'recovering writer' - his first novel having been littered with typos and selling only fifty copies - Frank Jasper is plucked from obscurity in Port Jumbo in Nigeria by Mrs Kirkpatrick, a white woman and wife of an American professor, to attend the prestigious William Blake Program for Emerging Writers in Boston. Once there, however, it becomes painfully clear that he and the other Fellows are expected to meet certain obligations as representatives of their 'cultures.' His colleagues, veterans of residencies in Europe and America, know how to play up to the stereotypes expected of them, but Frank isn't interested in being the African Writer at William Blake - any anyway, there is another Fellow, Barongo Akello Kabumba, who happily fills that role. Eventually expelled from the fellowship for 'non-performance' and 'non-participation, ' Frank Jasper sets off on trip to visit his father's college friend in Nebraska - where he learns not only surprising truths about his father, but also how to parlay his experiences into a lucrative new career once he returns to as a commentator on American life...Seesaw is an energetic comedy of cultural dislocation - and in its humour, intelligence and piety-pricking, it is a refreshing and hugely enjoyable act of literary rebellion.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Adult

244 pages, Paperback

Published August 4, 2022

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Jasper’s coming-of-age novel sank without a trace, a relic of a time when Frank steeped himself in Huysmans and Proust and wanted to be a serious novelist. But just when Frank’s dreams of writing seem a distant memory, a chance encounter changes everything. One day he’s at home in Port Jumbo, Nigeria, then he’s an “ethnic writer” in America, expected to make his mark via the William Blake Program for Emerging Writers at an obscure, Boston college. Once enrolled, Frank’s swiftly outperformed by the other members of this select group who understand perfectly what the 'white establishment' wants from them: from ‘authentic blackness’ to commentator on the complexities of the ‘global, post-colonial world’. The hapless Frank seems destined to become the resident Bartleby, until he’s forced to strike out on his own. Once adrift in America, he goes in search of an obscure part of his family history, a piece of a puzzle that he may finally be able to solve.

Timothy Ogene’s drily satirical, highly referential narrative draws on the campus and road novel traditions to produce a smart, subversive take on post-colonial studies, academic discourse and the restrictive roles on offer to black writers - required to live up to white audiences' expectations. But Ogene goes beyond critique to construct a stirring account of personal reinvention and making peace with the past. By turns witty and unexpectedly moving, I was quickly drawn into Frank’s world, although there were times when his story stalled or felt curiously static. I was less impressed by the portrayal of the women Frank encounters, they reminded me too much of the one-dimensional, fantasy figures littering the pages of books by men like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow – although it’s possible this was a deliberate echo.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Swift Press for an arc

Rating: 3.5

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is refreshing for the book involving racial relations and stereotypes being full of humour. I liked the main protagonist who was capable to laugh at himself as well as to observe and satirise certain attitudes of the American cultural elite towards "ethnic" literature and the willingness of some "ethnic" writers to propagate the stereotypes assigned to them in exchange for money or recognition. This short novel was genially funny apart from being topical. It was also fascinating to see modern America through the eyes of a Nigerian aspiring writer who is the main protagonist. I was happy that he has not become the one of those deliberately passive characters present in modern literature who resort to self-harm of worse as a form of protest against racism and stereotyping. I would not want such things becoming a trope and I've noticed it in at least 3 books loaded in the last two years. This novel is an example that it is not the only way to write about those things effectively.

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seesaw is a novel about a Nigerian writer whose failing novel is discovered by a white American woman who suggests he apply to the William Blake Program for Emerging Writers in Boston. Frank leaves Port Jumbo for America, where it becomes apparent he is expected to be an 'African' writer and talk about post-colonialism, and Frank doesn't want to be the stereotype, but being expelled turns out to be quite helpful for a writing career.

The book is both a satire of literary culture and what is expected of authors, and the story of a somewhat lost man finding direction. It is told with hindsight, and the pacing wasn't quite what I expected, but I liked the parts that paralleled Frank's experiences with what he later uses in his reinvigorated career commenting on America. There was also some good light-hearted mockery of academic and literary language and how it can both mean nothing and specific things. Because Frank was the narrator, a lot of the book was more focused on what he did and saw than these elements, and for me I would've preferred more of them.

A comic novel about a writer going in a strange journey to and around America, Seesaw is a light read that still delves into cultural difference and what diversity in literature really means, albeit in a satirical way.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opens like a cynical satire on post-colonial literature and white Americans seeking some sort of redemption and authenticity through Africans, but gradually becomes something quieter and sadder and more serious. Also contains a fictional unfinished novel I would love to read.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever and subversive. Frank Jasper is an unsuccessful Nigerian novelist whose first book was a bit of a disaster, but somehow finds himself invited to participate in the William Blake Program for Emerging Writers in Boston, USA. There he is expected to fully participate in the program, and carry out his imposed duties. But he just can’t, it’s just not him, he can’t play that particular game – a box-checking exercise in diversity, racial equality, post-colonial studies and what he ultimately sees as a whole lot of faux-intellectual claptrap. Ogene skewers the whole business with insight, intelligence and wit, making this a thought-provoking and very amusing satire with a serious sub-text and I enjoyed it enormously.

[books4chess · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The thought of starving to death in the centre of America's corn belt amused me".

Timothy Ogene has written a glorious contemporary novel about a Nigerian author 'discovered' by an American woman who encourages him to apply for a writing fellowship in the USA. We follow the writer as he navigates a complicated relationship with the country, struggling to settle in and apply himself to his journey and restrained by the actions and overbearing actions of others.

The novel is gorgeously written with literary references and satire, as we observe the protagonist fight through expectations, stereotypes and carving out a place for himself in a society with little free space for growth. His sarcasm and unwillingness to follow the status quo see's him written off by colleagues and a parallel opposite to one of his African fellows, yet his ability to live in the moment and really see things for what they are allow the reader to question who the true 'loser' is.

The book something powerful, and could easily be dismissed at surface level. Readers should take the time to absorb the content and really consider the interactions. There were moments that left me uncomfortable, confused and downright amused. The lack of interest in engaging in Diaspora 'disputes' over jollof rice and the character's inability to mould into the expectations, contrasted with his grounded demeanour, open mindedness and better integrated experience says a lot. Further, I admired his ability to take his misfortune - if the reader chooses to view it that way - into a genuine opportunity.

This is certainly a novel I will return to and reread, because I don't imagine I caught everything first time.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

[Adina Thavisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a witty and charming read that follows the journey of a Nigerian writer to a writing fellowship in Boston and back again. I enjoyed the messiness of the main character, and his earnest rebellion against fitting into any box or meeting any of the silly preconceptions of those around him. It pokes fun at pretentiousness and tokenism in Academia and never takes itself too seriously. 4 stars.

[Ukamaka Olisakwe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ogene’s writing has a sentient quality. His language sings and his sharp themes are softened with humor. But what makes “Seesaw” a stunning and successful work is his protagonist’s ability to look in the mirror and see his hypocrisy. Jasper becomes that which he loathes.

You can find the rest of my review here:

https://iselemagazine.com/2021/11/05/...

[Akin]

Abandoned at p.180

The Literary-Industrial Complex is ripe ground for satire. Sadly, this attempt was trips itself up at the first hurdle - remembering which side of the divide one intends to stand on.

That aside, it’s as though Kingsley Amis wrote and died ( and pissed off a lot of people along the way) entirely in vain.

[Chiara Liberio · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I wanted them to know that I wasn’t advancing any single ideology or worldview or notion of progress, and wasn’t trying to attack anyone, that I just wanted to exist and cry and laugh and fuck and live and die without prefixing or suffixing my actions with any universal idea of blackness or Africanness or whatever thing out there that I was supposedly tied to as a POC or BAME or warped extension of someone else’s imagination”.

A provocative read! Frank Jasper is a Nigerian student in the U.S. who has just been expelled from the creative writing programme where he had been admitted, and sets out to tell his story. Seesaw is the protagonist of the novel that has landed him there, and the word is a distortion of the way black Africans used to show obedience to their suppressors. The novel is somehow a black version of Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, with the narrator ripping through the hypocrisy of the world surrounding him, with hints of Ellison’s Invisible Man (both mentioned in the novel).

In riveting prose and a smart biting satire that made me laugh out loud several times, Frank exposes the patronising attitudes of his sponsors and refuses to conform to stereotypical postures and images that white academia has of African students, expected to reflect -- and even fabricate and sell -- a naïve, primitivist view of life in Africa. This is achieved very well by his more successful colleague who typically shows up in a traditional costume holding a shepherd stick and poses as if representing the self-conscious voice of Africa, with predictable tirades that basically “lambast white audiences without losing their support”. The protagonist, whose ancestors were deeply colonised and enmeshed with the European mindset”, instead underlines the complexities of African life and the fact that the history has turned “the average city dweller in Africa into a hybrid creature whose life is split between the multiple influences and traditions”, and does so with unprecedented, uncompromising frankness.

I can’t do justice to how engaging well written this book is, the satire of the academic world and rhetoric and of the way essentialism works is totally spot-on. At times the narrative drags a bit, and there is an interesting finale that I would liked to see more developed. However, on the whole this is an original, refreshing, complex, and thought-provoking debut.

My thanks to Swift Press for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Bob Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel starts with a slow, drawling sarcasm that, once you've adapted to its rhythm, realise just how clever this novel is.

Our main character has published one novel, a novel he rejects and feels physically uncomfortable thinking about, and feels a failure, especially considering its print run of 50.

Having destroyed almost every copy himself, he is surprised to find that a woman in the US has not only read it, but wants to offer him a fellowship on a prestigious writing programme because of it.

He goes along, his heart not fully into it, and is a drop-out of sorts- he doesn't write anything more when there, and is bemused by the pretentious self-promotion of other writers on his programme, who all seem to think that they are writing The Next Great (insert adjective here) Novel. He has no such aspirations and becomes increasingly alienated from it all, and from himself.

However, here is where the detached tone of the book does something quite extraordinary- the narrator is an observer of these other people who are so obsessed with themselves and their own mythologies that they fail to see the ridiculousness of the whole situation, or to see how they are putting our narrator on a pedestal to be an icon or role model for the whole of Africa for their own ends, failing to understand anything apart from the confirmation of their own biases.

Although we are meant to see his inability to complete the programme as a failure, he ultimately emerges from the book perhaps the most grounded. The people he meets often want to be the one to have secured 'authenticity', whilst growing further from it every day.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Steven Marciano · Rating 4 out of 5]

While working in a post office in the fictional city of Port Jumbo, Nigeria, Frank Jasper's commercially unsuccessful book, amounting to a run of just 50 copies, is plucked from obscurity by a visiting American, who encourages him to enrol in the William Blake programme for Emerging Writers in Boston, MA. What unfolds is a kind of hybrid campus/road novel that pokes fun at, and seriously challenges, the stereotypes created within Western academia. Stereotypes which only help perpetuate a neat, singular story of a continent and its people, and an expectation for 'ethnic writers' to conform to Western ideals of what constitutes post colonial literature.

Frank Jasper is awkward in his new surroundings, unable to fit in with his fellow enrolees, particularly Barongo Akello Kabumba who plays up his Africanness, much to Frank's annoyance. Feeling like a literary imposter and unwilling to carry out the role required of him, Frank abandons the idea of the programme altogether (ultimately being kicked off for non-performance) to seek out experiences of the real America — an irony not lost on the reader — when a chance discovery sends him on a journey West.

Overall Seesaw is an incredibly enjoyable book that had me laughing on occasions, and at all times caring about its protagonist during their period of dislocation, self-discovery and reflection. Timothy Ogene's debut is engaging, satirical, smart, and in the end something quite touching and beautiful. I'm intrigued to see what he comes up with next.

[Saima · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hated it. "Funny" remarked twice on the cover, and once on the back. It may well be a satire on the literary world and academia, but none of it was at all funny. I wanted to abandon ship, just like the hope I abandoned about 3 pages in, skimmed the last 40 pages and no idea what the rushed ending was (or care). A writer, having sold 50 of his 1st book (most to his agent/publisher?) and lounging in mess and poverty, gets picked up by a white woman and told about a writing programme in Boston for emerging writers, he goes and it has token members of multiple minorities, he's annoyed at the other African (with reason, for playing up on his African-ness) and doesn't write anything himself. He's disillusioned, prone to lying and makes up statements on topics such as post-colonialism with buzzwords from short reading he's done, feels a fraud but exposes the fraud of some academia and literary circles in his experiences of being paid to talk shit at any conference with no knowledge. Guess Boris Johnson gets away with it too for £270k a pop.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a triumph! I kept comparing it with Leaving The Atocha Station in my head (both protagonists are young writers, both in an environment away from home, both slip easily into lying) but I genuinely think this has more dimensions than Atocha. Perhaps I’m misremembering and my memory has been distorted by the later meta fiction but there’s a touch of smugness in Atocha that doesn’t exist here.

In fact, Ogene’s writing irreverently flips off the woke and the literary, while being in dialogue with both. I think I learned some, saw the world in a new way, without ever being preached at - because the bitter lost narrator is a sympathetic but flawed point of view.

It’s refreshing and one of those books I had to ration because it was tearing me away from what I needed to do this week.

[Amanda Rosso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironic, funny but incredibly lucid, this novel by Timothy Ogene is an incredible account of an African man's journey within the US, his family's history and his identity as a writer.
Pregnant with meaning, Ogene's novel explores the burden of 'post colonial' existence for those subjects who find themselves representing entire populations in the eyes of the newly 'woke' white gaze.

With the rhythm of a well told joke and the depth of a meaningful soul searching exploration, Ogene's flawlessly depicts unforgettable characters while laying bare the contraddictions and hypocrisies of racial and cultural inequalities and the burden of taking up a role and speak for the whole "race".

[Felix · Rating 5 out of 5]

An acerbic take on the culture of otherness American academia forces on its foreign guests--here a Nigerian "recovering writer". Funny almost to the point of sadness. In failing to shy away from the discomforts of writing in, from, and to empire, Ogene does it all somehow all at once, leaving only the question of whether the seesaw falls to the ground and stays for the African-writer-guest, or the guesthouse he refuses to call home thus writing his fate in stone.

[Kinj S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the story could have been a little more convincing in the last quarter however, the writing and the satirical energy of the text make up for this.

[White Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very funny novel. Frank Jasper is totally unforgettable.

[Dana Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is an amusing satire and quite poignant in parts.

[Vadim K · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice, entertaining book

Interesting and easy-reading short book about a shy young writer, who doesn’t represent any group except himself.

It’s very refreshing and different from mainstream divisive agenda that represents people either as victims or oppressors.

[Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

Representation: Black and Asian characters
Trigger warnings: Sexist slur, assault, slavery and an abusive family mentioned

Seesaw by Timothy Ogene needed improvements.

It starts with Frank, a fictional author who only sold 50 copies of his debut novel. Then, he is invited to a writers' program in Boston.

While the characters are somewhat likable, all lack general relatability value, depth or meaningful development when more would have helped. Additionally, there is little action to find or discuss in this novel.

Even though the pacing is less than 250 pages, it is still lengthy because the plot meanders around aimlessly after the introduction. This pacing would work if the characters are more well-written.

While Seesaw was intriguing, it lost its appeal, intrigue and originality because there are other books that discuss the same themes. It is unclear what Seesaw is, as it could be a literary, metafiction or satirical piece. The metafiction part is well-executed because the author Ogene wrote a narrative about a fictional writer who writes a story. However, the satirical part feels too realistic and not exaggerated or funny. The novel, or its literary part, tries to explore themes such as writing and race but does so poorly because the plot is incoherent and the characters could be better. The plot does not flow that logically, which made for an unenjoyable read.

Score: Four out of ten.