Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon
Wole Talabi
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN: 9780756418267
DAW, August 2023, 320 pages

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another book review! This month we’ll be taking a look at a rollicking heist/love story that has much more going on beneath its surface than you might expect—Shigidi and the Brass Head Of Obalufon.

This novel follows the escapades of the titular Shigidi, a disfigured nightmare god working for minimal pray-pay at the Orisha spirit company, and the ancient succubus, Nneoma, who he encounters on one of his nocturnal assignments. Their fates quickly become intertwined as they work to free Shigidi from his obligations to the Orisha spirit company, but quitting one’s job as a god is slightly more complicated than just giving two weeks notice. The pair soon find themselves embroiled in the highest of stakes as they are tasked with pulling off a heist that spans the real and unreal worlds.

One of the first things I want to point out about this book is that a lot of people are going to compare it to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (with good reason), but while Shigidi and the Brass Head Of Obalufon bears some similarities, it is very much a unique and vibrant tale that says what it wants to say on its own terms. Two of the main themes that Wole Talabi keeps coming back to—capitalism and colonialism—are intertwined just as deeply as Shigidi and Nneoma’s relationship, and Talabi pulls no punches when addressing how these two forces impact those not lucky enough to be on the benefitting side. There is a potent mixture of rage, grief, and resigned acceptance that causes Talabi’s words to almost leap off the page, and propels both Shigidi and Nneoma forward in a headlong rush to defy their fates.

The second thing that really stood out to me was that even though Shigidi is the name in the title, the book is just as much Nneoma’s story as it is his. Talabi does masterful work weaving in gender expectations with subversions of the same in order to highlight issues of female bodily autonomy and social perceptions of women who dare desire sexuality the way men do. Nneoma is a strong, capable character fighting to survive in a world that would happily see her dead, and I thought Talabi did a remarkable job portraying both Nneoma as a person, as well as her relationship with Shigidi.

Lastly, coming back to the American Gods comparison, and I think the reason why it’s the first thing that springs to mind, is that Talabi absolutely knocks it out of the park when it comes to making an unreal world feel perfectly normal. The gods are people because that is who created them, but they are also gods because that is who they are expected to be, and this dichotomy lends itself perfectly to the richly detailed world Talabi weaves. The pacing of the story itself follows the same footsteps, jumping between different timeframes with an ease that belies how difficult it is to pull off such a feat without leaving the reader confused, but what might possibly be awkward and lurching in less capable hands flows like a river at sunset, countless shades blending into a perfect whole. This is a story filled with love and sex and violence, and it is a story unafraid to let itself breathe in the spaces in between.

Overall, I hope I’ve convinced you to give Shigidi and the Brass Head Of Obalufon a chance because it really is a spectacular piece of work. It is a raw, pulsating heart in the middle of a bloody chest carved open by the claws of the past, but it’s one filled with love and a wish to remake the world into something better. I enjoyed it tremendously, and I hope Talabi continues the tale.

Read if: you dream of an escape from grinding out another dollar for the boss; you understand oppression is timeless; you’ve ever imagined Aleister Crowley as an emo-band front man.