3 out of 4 stars
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Chronic is a novel written by Yomi Makanjuola and is a follow-up to his novel Stoic, featuring the same main character Franklin Delano, who returns to Nigeria after his education in the UK and stumbles upon a world where kidnapping seems to be quite common as well as a crime that bodes profit for both the kidnappers as well as the security companies hired to handle these cases, most often without the help of law enforcement. This is in no way a crime thriller, but rather an intriguing story that raises many issues indicant of various minority groups and their places in the world today.
Franklin arrives home in time to complete his national service year for the NYSC (National Youth Service Corps), something all school-leavers in Nigeria within a certain age window has to do before they can seek any real employment. Deployed to Rivers State, he finds himself in the midst of what his mother likes to refer to as a "war zone", at the nexus of the Niger Delta Conflict. Being based in Port Harcourt, where prevalent kidnappings are mainly directed at foreigners and employees of the oil industry, Franklin concurs that he might be safe if he is careful enough.
While waiting at the airport at Lagos, an old high school friend named Dipo coincidentally bumps into Franklin, revealing that he too has been posted to the Port Harcourt campsite where they must finish an orientation phase which will last three weeks. At the end of the orientation, the corpers finally get their assignments. Franklin will be working the next ten to eleven months at a company called Weinberg Security Limited, while Dipo will be spending his time at a newspaper company known as The Delta Equinox. Since they will both be working in Port Harcourt, they agree to share an apartment in the Trans-Armadi neighborhood.
While Weinberg Security deals exclusively with kidnapping and extortion scenarios, Franklin's work at the company is mainly office based. Aside from work, Franklin regularly communicates via email exchanges with a woman called Nike Campbell, a woman he had met while attending a party with his brother before leaving the UK for Nigeria. Their discussions are never romantic, but cover quite serious topics such as problems faced by Nigerians, the Holocaust, and the African slave trade.
Overall, this is a well-written novel, although I do not completely agree with some of the conclusions reached in some of the emails between Franklin and Nike. Apart from being an easy-to-follow read, what this novel lacks are more colorful and diverse characters; nine tenths of them seem to be highly intellectual in one way or another. Franklin's whole world comes across as if it's centered on intelligence and good education. The whole plot of the novel is quite intricate, but to understand the idea behind it all isn't that hard when you eventually reach the end.
First of all, like I mentioned before, this is not a crime novel. Don't read this book with the idea that you will bite your fingernails in worry for the main character's safety. People I'll recommend this novel to the most should be highly intellectual like the characters in the book themselves. However, if you consider yourself just the average-minded John/Jane and just feel the need for something different, feel free to give this a try. For lack of colorful characters only I'm taking away one star, and rating this novel 3 out of 4.
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Chronic
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