Fionnáin reviewed Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi
Brilliant, inconsistent
3 stars
Any collection of short stories is bound to have some favourites and some less so. Just so with Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi.
Flashes of utter brilliance are clear in the title story and its apocalyptic undertones, and the weird tale of animalistic murder solving in Green Afternoon. The others mostly fail to live up to the better ones, with a little too much TV-style violent-drama in the tales for my taste. Definitely more than enough evidence here of an excellent, unorthodox voice to try more by Onwuemezi though.