Aftershocks

By: Nadia Owusu

Narrated by: Nadia Owusu

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, this “gorgeous” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice) and deeply felt literary memoir from Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu tells the “incredible story” (Malala Yousafzai) about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VULTURE, TIME, ESQUIRE, NPR, AND VOGUE!

Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadia’s nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was thirteen. After his passing, Nadia’s stepmother weighed her down with a revelation that was either a bombshell secret or a lie, rife with shaming innuendo.

With these and other ruptures, Nadia arrived in New York as a young woman feeling stateless, motherless, and uncertain about her future, yet eager to find her own identity. What followed, however, were periods of depression in which she struggled to hold herself and her siblings together.

“A magnificent, complex assessment of selfhood and why it matters” (Elle), Aftershocks depicts the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her life’s perpetual quaking, the means by which she has finally come to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand.

“Full of narrative risk and untrammeled lyricism” (The Washington Post), Aftershocks joins the likes of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and does for race identity what Maggie Nelson does for gender identity in The Argonauts.

Critic reviews

"In this poignant memoir, author and narrator Nadia Owusu weaves an intricate narrative of home, belonging, trauma, family, geography, and the truths held in her Black female body. Using earthquakes as a metaphor to untangle the threads of her life, she recounts her childhood in Europe and Africa—a childhood defined by her mother's abandonment when she was a baby and her father's death when she was a teeanger. Her narration, like her prose, is raw and immediate. Sometimes rough and sometimes melodious, her ever-changing tone reflects a kaleidoscope of identity and experience. Her voice itself is a story, carrying both pain and joy. It is impossible to listen to this audiobook without hearing the power of Owusu's remaking of her world—and thus, our world—as she speaks."

Tender, healing, and triumphant

Nadia's recounting of her life is poetically done, thematically structured, and painted a picture of my own pain. it was healing for me to read about her life, because my life was also described. The feelings of not knowing your home, not knowing the people you came from, not knowing who your mother is, all very similar pain experienced. Thank you Nadia for sharing this with the world.

Aftershocks

Very moving and mellifluous. Painfully honest and the author is empathic and you get to watch her awareness shift over the course of the book

Kept me interested

This wasn't your usual memoir. I really enjoyed it and also found it educational to some degree in reference to her father's culture

Beautiful memoir

This was a beautiful written poetic journey of a complex life. I look forward to her next work

Sometimes less is more

It feels like a truly compelling life story bogged down by delivery and unnecessary information added. It almost felt like she didn’t believe her story was good enough, so she just kept adding anything she could think of.