A Broken People’s Playlist by Chimeka Garricks
Chimeka Garricks’ A Broken People’s Playlist is a profound and emotionally resonant collection of twelve interconnected short stories set primarily in the city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The book is unique in its structure, as each story is written “under the influence” of a specific song, creating a literary “playlist” that explores themes of love, loss, betrayal, redemption, and the “God-sized hole” in the human soul. Lost Stars (Adam Levine) The collection begins with the story of Sira, a high-powered Lagos lawyer, and Kaodini, an “accidental farmer” in Port Harcourt. Their love story is told in “fragments” over the course of nearly two decades. They first met in 1997 when Kaodini worked in his father’s bakery, and their bond was cemented on a night when Sira sought refuge in his room after being beaten by her boyfriend, Victor, and rejected by her own father. On that night, they shared a meal of bread dipped in Milo, which became a lifelong symbol of comfort. Though they drifted apart as Sira moved to Lagos for her career, they remained each other’s “One Who Got Away”. During a visit to Port Harcourt for her sister’s wedding, Kaodini proposes to her while cutting her …