This is going to be such a difficult review to write, for various reasons. So let me say this first: I really liked this book, even though I think I probably didn’t understand all of it. Maybe even a lot of it. But whatever I say beneath the cut, let me recommend this to you, especially as an audiobook, which helps keep the POVs apart a little better. Now, on to me trying to collect and order my thoughts.
GOLIATH by Tochi Onyebuchi
Published : Tordotcom, 2022 Ebook : 336 pages Audiobook : 12 hours, 20 minutes Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White, JD Jackson, Juliana Vélez, Kevin R. Free, Nidra Sous La Terre, Shayna Small, Tim Campbell, Stephanie Willis Standalone My rating: 7.5/10
Opening line: Before his flight to Earth, they had warned Jonathan about the “gangs.”
In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked. A primal biblical epic flung into the future, Goliath weaves together disparate narratives—a space-dweller looking at New Haven, Connecticut as a chance to reconnect with his spiraling lover; a group of laborers attempting to renew the promises of Earth’s crumbling cities; a journalist attempting to capture the violence of the streets; a marshal trying to solve a kidnapping—into a richly urgent mosaic about race, class, gentrification, and who is allowed to be the hero of any history.
It’s a time when rich people have left Earth for the colonies, cities in space or on other planets, leaving behind all those too poor or unable to join them. Behind on an Earth that is ravaged by climate change, with unbreathable air, toxic landscapes, and only the slightest hope of survival left. Onyebuchi shows us this world through a full cast of characters, of different social standings, racial backgrounds, each with their own history and background. And it’s all non-linear, but occasionally interwoven, except not really obviously at first. Which makes this such a difficult book to talk about after only one reading.
It hasn’t been long since I finished listening to the (superbly performed!) audiobook version, and yet I don’t remember all character names. There’s Jonathan and David, the first of which wishes to return to Earth after living in the colonies but looking for a new start, waiting for David to join him as soon as he can. I enjoyed Jonathan’s perspective, because it stands in such contrast to the ones we see later in the book. As a white, privileged man who was able to flee Earth and now has the luxury of deciding to go back and build a new life there, he could feel like an antagonist. But Onyebuchi draws his characters – all of them – with so much care and empathy that I quite liked Jonathan.
A group of POV characters are more closely connected, in that they all know each other and live together or are friends/family of a sort. That includes Linc, a laboror working on demolishing houses, and some people connected to him. This is where I have to say that there were large parts of the book where I wasn’t sure I understood everything correctly. The colonies take Earth’s resources, such as bricks, and essentially steal them to use for themselves, while the people left on Earth eke out a living in the ruins. At leas that’s how I understood it. But the thing about this book is, it’s not really that important to get the technicalities right. Like I couldn’t explain to you in detail what Linc does all day during his job. He operates some machines that demolish houses, I think? It was kind of cool but, again, also not vital for the heart of this book.
We also follow a marshal who is on to a suspected murderer and kidnapper, trying to find the kidnapped person; and a journalist documenting the situation on Earth, the violence, the pity-tourism, the gangs, the crime, but also the found families and how humanity persists. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you these characters’ names, but I still have certain moments or scenes clear in my mind as if I’d just read them a moment ago.
As I mentioned, the book is told by many people and not in a linear way. Sure, when you’re in one character’s POV, their story happens chronologically. But then you get to another POV character and what they experience may be years in the past or years into the future, from the first POV character’s perspective. It’s up to the reader to catch our bearings each and every chapter and kind of figure out where this vignette we’re reading fits in the larger scheme of things. I was lost a lot of the time and simply didn’t know what happened when or who was connected to whom again. And while that kind of confusion is not fun, exactly, it also didn’t make me dislike the book. I suspect a lot of people may feel differently and just rage-quit at a certain point. I totally understand and would thus like to warn you: This is a series of vignettes that are partly interlinked, happen at different times, in different places, with very little information on how the mosaic fits together. I personally found them worthwhile despite of that, but I can see how someone looking for a red thread to follow may just give up in frustration.
My favorite part, maybe because it felt the most like a clear, straight-forward story within the story, was the part about the prison uprising (which I learned in the afterword is based on real life events). It’s not a very happy tale, but it was the one that got the most immediate emotional response from me and made me the most excited to keep reading. In parallel to that story runs the tale of that marshal arresting the murderer/kidnapper, but told from the murderer’s perspective, so that was also… let’s say exciting. Having a raging racist’s point of view included in a book like this, lends it a sort of strange balance. And you can feel the difference in the air when this character uses the N-word and when other, Black characters do.
Lastly, a word about the narration: You’ll see this book has quite a number of narrators, one for each POV, and that, I believe, made it much easier to tell the different perspectives apart. Usually, I have a harder time concentrating on audiobooks which is why I tend to choose more fluffy, fun books for that (or ones narrated by people that just capture me), but in this case, I think I made the right choice. Each and every one of the narrators creates this atmosphere, lets their character come to life through inflection and accents and modulation. It’s a little bit like listening to an oral history. And I also suspect that I wouldn’t have liked this confusing-as-hell book as much as I did, had I read it in print.
Riot Baby by Onyebuchi may not have worked for me for the reason that it didn’t tell a straight-up story, but that exact same “problem” doesn’t bother me here with Goliath . It only cemented my opinion that Onyebuchi is an exciting author to watch and one that doesn’t shy away from trying new and original things with his fiction. I look forward to his next book, even if it makes me feel stupid.
MY RATING: 7.5/10 – Really good!
P.S.: I will definitely re-read this some day and take extensive notes. This is the kind of book that just begs for that and I’m sure will reward the attentive reader with all sorts of cool Easter eggs.
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