Buried Secrets and Fragile Masks in "Little Rot"

By Gianni Washington on July 2, 2024

Akwaeke Emezi's eighth book Little Rot follows six characters who have either been dragged into the underbelly of the fictional city of New Lagos, Nigeria, or have never left it. Emezi plunges their characters into situations that strip away the fragile armor of constructed identity, revealing their flaws, fears, and questions. The "rot" of the title is an oft-repeated reference to the ruinous effects of New Lagos, a portal into endless dark avenues, on those who live there.

Little Rot begins with the end of a relationship. Aima and Kalu have been together for almost five years, but have come to feel like strangers to one another—a result of keeping their true desires to themselves for too long. Aima, a devout Christian, met Kalu in the United States, both in search of a temporary escape from their families' expectations. But the people they became in the US weren't completely authentic versions of themselves. Upon returning to Nigeria, Aima finds her way back to expressing her beliefs openly, including that she and Kalu should be married, not "living in sin." Kalu, blindsided by what he thinks are new opinions put into Aima's head by her friends in New Lagos, relinquishes the version of himself she had once known and does not fight to keep her in his life when she decides to leave. Instead, he attends a sex party thrown by his best friend Ahmed, who has always professed to live as his true self but is also revealed to be hiding something. In an effort to forget Kalu, Aima flees to her best friend Ijendu's home for a wild night out as someone else: a bad gehl. In this one night, everything begins to unravel.

Little Rot reads a lot like a thriller. It's fast-paced and devourable in one or two sittings. The writing is as sensuous as readers of Emezi's work have come to expect, with vividly depicted action, colors, and scenery. The sex scenes are electric with either passion or dread—sometimes, wonderfully, both—and are entirely plausible. The dialogue is full of unexplained idioms, something that is both exciting and mildly frustrating in the instances when context alone is not enough to bring clarity. Coming across unfamiliar slang does prompt an urge to learn more about the cultures coexisting in Nigeria and Africa at large, though—a lovely byproduct.

More frustrating and less educational than the unfamiliar language is the number of compelling, yet inconsequential discoveries characters make throughout the novel. Because Little Rot takes place over a single weekend, characters don't have room to properly unpack the effects of the story's events or deal with the weight of what they learn about themselves. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as what unfolds in Little Rot will definitely make you want to keep turning pages to see what comes next. The frustration lies in meeting characters who seem to shun their own complexity. Aima for instance does next to no introspection about why it is so important to her to get married—nothing beyond insisting that it's what God wants for her. Her friendship with Ijendu was forged at their religious primary school, yet Ijendu did not carry those beliefs into adulthood. So why did Aima? Similar questions arise regarding latent attractions between certain characters that, if fully acknowledged, would rock the foundations of multiple relationships in the book. As it is, these feelings are left uninterrogated, as are the reasons for repeatedly pushing them aside in the first place, leaving the story largely unaffected by them. It likely goes without saying that every narrative shouldn't be expected to probe a character's psychology in full. But it can be difficult to be shown such intriguing features of a character's inner world only for those elements to ultimately have little discernible bearing on the story itself.

There are also aspects of the plot that feel avoidable, primarily those concerning the knowledge four of the six main characters should reasonably have of one another. We are told at one point that Aima, Kalu, Ijendu, and Ahmed have all spent time together since Aima and Kalu's return to New Lagos, making the surprise of one or two reveals a bit hard to believe. Even if the four weren't often social, with two of them in a long-term relationship, certain pieces of information would likely be shared between them, especially considering how close Aima and Kalu were before things went sour.

Little Rot will take you on a pulsing ride beneath the surfaces of people, places, and things. Just don't expect to linger—note the most interesting landmarks as you come to them, then brace yourself for the next enthralling stretch of pandemonium.