In Wonder, Your People: (And Other Stories)

It’s easy to make people sad, easier still to make them cry. And while there is much tragedy to be found in these stories, Tosin Balogun’s first short-story collection is interested mainly in arresting the human condition at its most cockeyed.

In Wonder, Your People employs a maximalist, mournfully humorous style that tangles easily with Balogun’s Nigerian heritage. The stories are impossible yet grounded in an odd relatability. “Mr. Penis, All the Way Down,' a surprisingly poignant tale of a man who castrates himself to fix his erectile dysfunction, pairs naturally with “Elele,” a simple recounting of a tiny village in Southern Nigeria. Similarly, “The Future, The Future” (about a man whose wife transforms into a house) is trailed by stories about lonely cold evenings and emotional support air-fryers and masturbating crackheads.

Borrowing as much from David Foster Wallace as from Wole Soyinka, In Wonder, Your People is in the business of relentlessly confounding both itself and its readers, all while holding on to the hope that it may ultimately land on something if not beautiful, then at least true.