The Fake Ghost
When a book opens with a perfectly hilarious - but no less heart-pounding- description of a man feeling his power (whom we will learn is POTUS - or as Sam Seaborn tells us in the opening scenes of The West Wing- the President of the United States) having his soul hurtle through a metaphysical tunnel system to be deposited in a, let’s say, more modest, actual infant, you know you’re in for a ride of your own.
The next several chapters of The Fake Ghost from Nuzo Onoh follow the infant who, instead of his given name, Lanre, insists to all that his name is POTUS - the name one of the voices he hears from the time he is born uses - as he grows into a selfish bully of a child under the care of his wealthy adoptive parents in Lagos, his primary joys lying in his many golf championships and extorting his parents for money in exchange for keeping family secrets.
Every so often, we see a news report giving the status of U.S. President Jerry King’s state of health as he lies in a coma after being hit in the head with a golf ball, learning more about him which strengthens the connection already drawn between POTUS and, well, “the” POTUS.
When POTUS is a teenager, an accident separates his “fake ghost” from him, and it’s a race against time for them to get “the” POTUS back to his body, still lying in a coma in the U.S.
The Fake Ghost is one of those novels that cannot be easily categorized although it is being billed as “supernatural thriller”, “magical realism”, “dark farce” - and it is all of these, but it is also gut-wrenchingly violent at times, heart-breaking at others, and, yes, the dark farce has definite laugh-out-loud moments. It is an examination into human behavior, societal expectations, and being authentically ourselves while understanding what it’s like to live in someone else’s skin - and maybe (sometimes) being better for it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Dead Sky Publishing for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Pub. date: 8/12/25
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