First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.
Synopsis:
What makes a family? Who gets to define it? Is freedom for everyone?
In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde’s characters search for answers to these provocative questions as they stake lives for themselves in one of the world’s most dynamic cities: Lagos, Nigeria. Vibrantly active, brazenly flawed, and stubbornly themselves, they test the limits of their relationships – with society, relatives, and one another – as they pursue love, community, and happiness. As they navigate the worlds of art, music, creative commerce, and beyond, each of them reveals how they reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.
Unexpected and insightful, Necessary Fiction is a wise and poignant novel about love, desire, one’s chosen family, and what it costs to create a life worth inhabiting.
It’s the end of the workweek—yay! I hope the week has been kind to everyone and that you’re all ending it on a high note. Just like that, we are already in the eleventh month of the year. Things are certainly looking up. I am still fully integrating into my new job and environment, learning the ropes while looking for ways to improve the current processes. Still, I hope the rest of the year will be just as good. But how time flies! Time takes its natural course, with little regard for any of us. This also means that we will be welcoming a new year in a couple of months. As the year approaches its inevitable close, I hope everyone is rewarded for their hard work and showered with blessings and good news. With the weekend finally here, I hope everyone has a great one. It’s time to dress down and spend the weekend resting from the rigours of a demanding career, pursuing your passions, completing household chores, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing.
After the relentless rains of August and early September, the weather has been fine these past few weeks. Still, there is some lingering concern over the prospect of a super El Niño threatening the Philippines and much of the world. Some places are already experiencing drought, and forecasts suggest that conditions could worsen over the coming months. I hope these forecasts are off the mark, as such conditions could adversely affect the livelihoods and even the health of many. While the days are stifling, nights are starting to become colder as the Amihan season sets in. The collision of these contrasting weather phenomena exposes us to various health concerns. Flu has become more prevalent in the past few weeks. Nevertheless, regardless of where you are in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world, I hope you’re all doing well—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Anyway, with the end of the workweek comes a fresh First Impression Friday update.
After concluding my journey across the extensive American literary landscape in mid-October, I have commenced a more liberal reading journey. However, the focus remains on the books that are part of my ongoing challenges. Interestingly, excluding my 2026 Books I Look Forward To list, I am now down to the last five books in my reading challenges. All of them are works by African writers. As such, my current literary journey is going to be influenced by African writers. I am starting it with a book that I was looking forward to. It was in 2022 when I first came across Nigerian writer Eloghosa Osunde. Like their countrywoman Akwaeke Emezi, they are nonbinary. Osunde’s debut novel, Vagabonds!, immediately piqued my interest. It was an interesting novel, to say the least, effectively commanding my attention and tickling my imagination. When news of the release of their sophomore novel reached me, it was imperative for me to read it.
Originally released in 2025, Necessary Fiction echoes the same elements as its predecessor. The novel transports readers to contemporary Lagos, where we are introduced to a plethora of queer characters. At the center of the story are Ziz and Maro. Their friendship forms one of the novel’s most important relationships. We learn that Ziz moved to Lagos to leave behind a judgmental and rejecting family. He also wanted to earn money, establish himself, and prove his father, “Popsy,” wrong. He is a serial entrepreneur with schemes that are both absurd and brilliant. His schemes include actors-for-hire and fake travel souvenirs. He has learned to survive through self-invention and reinvention. He has also experienced several rejections, yet he developed a deep attachment to his friends. In his circle of friends, he found acceptance.
Maro is among his closest friends. Unlike Ziz, who was trying to prove himself to his father, Maro was grieving the loss of his own. Raised by his single father, he was also mourning his father’s complex legacy. His father’s best friend, Uncle Hassan, has been teased about being his father’s wife. His father’s loss deeply affects him. It grips and haunts him, taking his breath and sanity from his lungs and head. Still, he has to learn how to keep living, like his friend. Relationships, sex, and love slowly emerge as means of coping with grief and loss. The novel’s first part vividly captures the stories of the two main characters. The title, Family Album, aptly encapsulates the central conflicts of Ziz and Maro. Ironically, Ziz’s escape from gushing family wounds is the antithesis of Maro’s deep connection with his own.
Toward the end of the last chapter of the first part, readers are invited into the Truth Circle. The Truth Circle is a communal gathering, much like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. This community is a chosen family where Vagabonds can be candid about themselves without the judgment they face outside its corners. In their first novel, Osunde implied that vagabonds pertain to those who behave in socially and morally unacceptable ways. In the case of this novel, the characters are queer. Their meetings involve a ritual of silence, listening, and laughter. They cannot push each other for anything other than the truth. If the truth itself is too much, they will still be accepted for who they are. Each gathering ends with a chant that subsequently animates the rest of the novel.
Meanwhile, Akin is a quiet musician. His emotional range is conveyed through sound rather than speech. He also hosts the Truth Circle and eventually becomes a refuge for Maro. Interestingly, he was born as a gateway to other realms. This element of magical realism is not new for Osunde, as their debut novel was also riddled with similar elements. These elements provide a different dimension to the story, enriching it. Akin then takes messages for Maro to the realm of the dead to find the one Maro has lost and bring back a message from them. As the story moves forward, one of the novel’s central ideas slowly emerges. Biological family is contrasted with found and chosen families. Is blood really thicker than water? Osunde digresses. In the former, one cannot always find the love and acceptance that we yearn for. This makes us turn to the latter, as it is a human need to find connection.
Like in their debut novel, Osunde’s literary inquiry extends well beyond family and acceptance. Relative to these subjects, they grapple with sexuality and identity. These subjects are also fundamental to the story and serve as the foundation upon which the stories of Ziz, Maro, and other members of the Truth Circle are built. The meaning of the book’s title then slowly unravels. “Necessary fiction” pertains to the stories and disguises people construct in order to survive. In a society where queerness is often frowned upon and discriminated against, the characters create lies about who they are, whom they love, or what they want. Queer people, after all, often face family rejection, social stigma, and danger simply for existing and being themselves. While they cannot change the families they were born into, the characters can create communities in which they can be accepted.
I am about to enter the novel’s third part, and I am looking forward to seeing how the stories unfold. How about you, fellow readers? What are you reading this weekend? I hope you’re enjoying your current book.
