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Book Review: Real Thoughts by N.S. Ugezene

JoeyPinkney.com Book Review
Real Thoughts
by N.S. Ugezene
(Lulu)
3 out of 5 Stars

I have to admit that when I started reading Real Thoughts by N.S. Ugezene, I was frustrated. Although the main character stayed true to the title by expressing his thoughts and feelings on various topics, I couldn’t  figure out why I should care about his “plight” as a reader. (And I never figured out why people called him Pascal and other times KP.)

Pascal was a twenty-something man surviving in Pamona, CA, the best way he knows how. His mother stayed on his case, his dad made him out to be the ultimate momma’s boy, his step-father didn’t like him and the female friends that he accumulated came and went. He wasn’t too much different than most people at that age in that respect. What piqued my interest was his use of words because I understood the gist but wasn’t used to the way Real Thoughts read.

With a stack of “dirty magazines” to ease the tension created by his string of girlfriends and other females, Pascal stumbles through the typical growing pains of a young man staying at home with his parents while pursuing a college degree and trying to make his money stretch from paltry check to paltry check. His musings on things like people being materialistic, generational gaps in attitudes and proper diet are not ground-breaking, but they show the depths of Pascal’s critical thinking skills.

As I traveled through the pages, the one thing I could gather from Pascal was the fact that he had tons of opinions. What made this journey difficult as a reader was the painstaking detail in which Ugezene plotted Pascal’s day-to-day activities. If Pascal’s thoughts were the meat of the story, his daily routine made Real Thoughts overweight with irrelevant fluff.

His girl problems, money  problems, mall visits and time with his boys annoyed me like  fingernails being scraped across a chalk board. That annoyance slowly  gave way to intrigue. I wanted to know more about his background. I wanted to figure out why I couldn’t easily wrap my mind around Pascal’s experience.

Half way though the book, it hit me. Ugezene, and by extension Pascal, is Nigerian-American, born to Nigerian parents and raised in the United States. From this standpoint, I became intrigued with getting an inside look into a sub-culture of Black America that I hadn’t really put much thought into.

It started to make sense why he “fragranced” himself after showering rather than “putting on cologne”. Pascal’s journey into manhood was framed in a duality. He was an insider and an outsider at the same time: he is a part of the African-American culture, yet he was looked at as being different by his older Nigerian family. Although I was curious to read more about Real Thoughts‘ Nigerian-American angle, I was not enchanted.

As a reviewer, I found myself at the crossroads with Real Thoughts. There was one thing that I simultaneously liked and disliked about this book. Ugezene’s use of Pascal to express thoughts about world events didn’t translate well when framed within Pascal’s mediocre life. Reading about his thoughts and his minute-by-minute twenty-something life was not enjoyable. On the other hand, Pascal’s use of the English language as a Nigerian-American was fascinating in and of itself.

Since Pascal’s life was repetitive, Real Thoughts seemed to end abruptly. It was like I was driving down long road only to fall off a cliff that came out of no where. Real Thoughts never got into a progressive flow, so the chapters could have been placed in any order to achieve the same effect.

I think Real Thoughts would have done better as a book of essays by Ugezene, since it became easy to figure that Pascal’s life closely resembled the author’s. But I also think there is a niche in the making with Ugezene helming a genre for a new generation of Nigerian-American readers that grow up with Hip-Hop and the Internet.

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Dwayne P. Carter, author of My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Dwayne P. Carter, editor of My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions
(Lulu)

I’m Dwayne P. Carter, an inspiring poet who resides in Greenwood, South Carolina. I enjoy writing, reading, traveling, movies and spending time with family and friends. My life has been filled with joy and pain from childhood until now that is being expressed through poetry.

I simply have a love for seeing people enjoy all the parts that life it has to offer. In order to do my part to make people feel good and smile, I write beautiful heartfelt poetry to show others that I experience many of the same things they do and how much more alike we are than different.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions?

Dwayne P. Carter: The idea and inspiration for My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions originated over a period of time from childhood until the present moment. Life has taught many lessons that I could not keep inside my mind just for me to live with.

With these thoughts, I decided to write a book to let the world know how I feel about the many different situations that we face daily. I used poetical form to express my ideas and opinions.

JP: What sets My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions apart from other collections of poetry?

DC: What sets my poetry apart from other collections of poetry is the fact I write about every topic imaginable. For example, I write about the thoughts I have pertaining to world peace and how to get there, world corruption, life, death, love, fantasy, family, events, art, the universe and more. I think this gives me an identity among millions who have expressed there experiences through poetry.

JP: Who were the poets that inspired you and shaped your style?

DC: Poets who inspire me and shape my style are Joshua McCarter Simpson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Tupac Amaru Shakur, James Baldwin and many more. There are too many to name at the momen,t but all have been great influences to my gift of poetry.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions?

DC: My writing process is very spontaneous, but my poems have a rhythm to them. First, I think of exactly how I want to place my thoughts on paper so that the reader will get a feel for what I am trying to express. I am inspired by so many things of simplicity that my writing process actually never ends.

As long as I’m able to think, at any moment I may decide to write about something in poetical form. It took about two months to start and complete My Ideas & My Opinions, Your Decisions which is a collection of poems over a three year period.

JP: What’s next for Dwayne P. Carter?

DC: Next, I plan to continue thinking of ways to create poetry that will last for centuries to help humanity, and I enjoy the life I live along the way. Thank you.

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Allyson B. Campbell, author of In Good Company

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Allyson B. Campbell, author of In Good Company
(Lulu Publishing)

(One of the first ten people to comment on Allyson B. Campbell’s author interview will win a FREE copy of In Good Company.)

Natasha Choonidaas didn’t expect Victor Chambers to touch her heart and surely didn’t expect him to stay. In turn, Victor didn’t expect to fall in love with the once full-figured maid of his family’s friends.

The attraction certainly wasn’t there the first time around, but a year later…it was unstoppable. In Good Company, tells a story of two people living on two different islands in the Caribbean when a deep tragedy brings them both together.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write In Good Company?

Allyson B. Campbell: I love making my characters fall in love, which is the gravy in every story that I write about. I also wanted to write a story based in my home country since I had just visited the island and fell in love with its culture and history. Writing about the Indian culture was a challenge that I welcomed. I am not Indian, but I am intrigued by their culture.

I am very open-minded to learning new things. Alzheimer is seldom spoken of, and in In Good Company, I tell the story of the caregiver’s feeling about this illness.

JP: Many people tend to lump people from “the islands” together. Even worse, the stereotype is that they are all “Jamaicans”. What does In Good Company show the readers about the differences in cultures?

ABC: Love has no borders. Every island’s background started off in a similar fashion: immigration. People came from Africa, India and certain parts of Europe. They all blended over the centuries on each island. The food is similar, but may be cooked differently and each island has their own name for certain produces.

Even though a chennette is called by that name in Trinidad, in Guyana and Jamaica it’s called guinep. It is the same small fruit consisting of a thin, crisp shell covering a round seed, coated with a fleshy substance that you eat and each country loves it as the same.

I’ve had a Jamaican tell me that he didn’t like me because I was from Trinidad. Why? I did nothing wrong to him. Jamaica is the other side of my family, and I get along with my husband’s family very well. In high school, majority of my friends were from Jamaica, and yet I am a proud Trinidadian.

In In Good Company, a Jamaican falls in love with a Trinidadian, overlooking that he’s Black and she’s half Indian. Overlooking that he eats doubles and she eats ackee. Overlooking the prejudice that still exists with each island even to this day.

JP: What did you learn from the experience of writing Chained and Bound that makes In Good Company a better novel?

ABC: I don’t consider In Good Company better than Chained and Bound because I love all my work. I love that I am able to write about love but tell a different story altogether. My works are based on real issues that people go through in every day life.

When I write, I bring my readers into that world of whatever issue the character is encountering. People need to know what it feels like for a woman to leave an abusive relationship where there are still strings attached (Chained and Bound). People need to read about how caregivers feel for taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer (In Good Company).

When a reader picks up any one of my books, they can enjoy knowing that any of the other ones will be just as marvelous as what they first read. The experience I gain from that interaction teaches me that I must continue writing.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish In Good Company?

ABC: I have started seven novels so far, and that was almost 10 years ago. My process now is finishing each story and building from what I wrote. I travel a lot, and I am always picking up creative ideas from everything that I do. I started In Good Company so long ago, but it took me 10 months to complete.

Usually, I pray before and after I write because it took a long time to realize the gift I have within myself. I would hate to lose it now. I still pace myself. When I think I’ve written enough, I take a break. My prayer now is to finish everything that I started. It is funny because when I first prayed about my writing, I asked God a serious question: “How am I going to be writing, and I don’t have any ideas?”.

Can you believe that he answered me with these seven stories? Now I pray, “Now that I have these stories, please help me finish them.” As of today, November 1st, I’ve brainstormed how to finish my third novel and have set a time limit for November 1st, 2010 for its completion.

JP: What’s next for Allyson B. Campbell?

ABC: Once published, my main focus is to reach to Caribbean market, who In Good Company was written for. I would LOVE to see this particular book in a movie. Where’s Tyler Perry? Oprah?

Indians and Africans, namely Nigerians, alike are coming out with movies based in their country. There is Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood, so the Caribbean needs to come out with movies like these.

http://www.abcdwb.com/
http://www.myspace.com/a_b_campbell
http://twitter.com/A_B_Campbell
http://www.amazon.com/ALLYSON-B.-CAMPBELL
http://www.abcdwb.com/html_links.cfm?menu_itemID=218682&load=html

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