Readers often talk about liking a novel (or not) because they connected to the protagonist (or didn’t). Reasons, sometimes inexplicable, for connecting—or not—vary from one reader to the next. That said, I immediately loved and connected with twenty-four-year-old Ghanaian American Akosua, the protagonist and narrator of Esinam Bediako’s thrilling debut novel, Blood on the Brain.
Akosua’s status as a grad student is a bit hazy, as is her love life. And then she falls and hits her head, adding to the haziness. As she deals with the aftermath of a concussion, Akosua explores her identity, family, and culture. I devoured Blood on the Brain, hungry for Bediako’s compelling voice and this rich meditation on memory, history, and imagination.
I was happy to have the opportunity to talk to Bediako about this fascinating debut.
Rachel León
I’ve never read a novel from the perspective of someone recently concussed, but it’s such a lush playground to play with memory. Where did you come up with the idea for this novel?
Esinam Bediako
I knew I wanted to write a story about a young woman whose estranged father returns and upends her life, but originally, the concussion wasn’t going to play a huge role in the story. Initially, Akosua’s fall was just a plot device: she falls, gets hurt, calls Ella and Wisdom, and the readers get to meet these two important people in her life. But the more I developed her as a character, the more I started worrying about Akosua as if she were a real person. I started obsessing over how she could possibly fall without hitting her head. Eventually, after researching concussions, I thought a head injury could be a good way to examine character motivation as well as cause and effect. As a writer, I usually consider motivation through psychological and emotional lenses. However, my research into the neuroscience of motivation and decision-making revealed the significant role of physiological factors. This made Akosua’s head injury an even more compelling element for me to explore. Her concussion influences her actions, blurring the lines between her injury and her identity.
Rachel León
I find novels dealing with memory so interesting since it’s such a slippery thing—and I found your handling of it admirable. Did that come through trial and error, or when you set out to write this novel did you know how you would handle memory on the page?
Esinam Bediako
It was a trial-and-error process. In an earlier draft from my MFA program (almost two decades ago), I made Akosua’s memories and dreams too literal. For example, if adult-Akosua had a fight with her mother, the next scene would show a flashback of child-Akosua having a similar fight with her mom. My teacher at the time, the amazing David Hollander, suggested I reflect on my own memories and dreams. Of course I realized that the most memorable ones are often bizarre. So, I began blending straightforward memories with quirkier, unconventional ones. Akosua constantly tells herself stories—some are memories, some are dreams, and others are imagined and manipulated incidents. My most recent revisions, the round of revisions I did a couple of years ago, focused on reworking some of these scenes, so it definitely didn’t come naturally to me.
Rachel León
I love the voice. It made me quickly connect to Akosua and I couldn’t put the novel down until I learned what happened to her. Many authors who have strong writing voices start there, others with character, or a blend of the two. Which started first in Blood on the Brain?
Esinam Bediako
I started with a blend of character and voice. Before Akosua and Blood on the Brain, I’d spent most of my first year of grad school writing a different novel. The protagonist (her name was Amina) had a lot more in common with me personality-wise than Akosua does. I struggled to make Amina seem like a fully developed character; I guess you might call her a bit of a Mary Sue. Toward the end of that first year, I put Amina’s story aside. I decided to try to create a character whose personality was more multi-faceted. I tried to make Akosua do all the things that a buttoned up Mary Sue (me?) would not do. I wanted her to be insecure yet bold, rash yet dutiful and conscious of the pressure to be a “good Ghanaian girl.” And I happened to hear her voice in my head. I could hear a persistent, insistent cadence to her voice. I thought of her as frustrated and frustrating. I wrote a lot of notes about Akosua and her story in first person, which helped me get the voice that was in my head onto the page.
Rachel León
The novel won the Ann Petry Award, which I was excited to see because The Street is a novel that made an impression on me as a young writer. But I don’t hear many people talk about Petry’s work. Any chance you’re a fan?
Esinam Bediako
I consider myself a novice fan of Ann Petry. I first learned about her in high school while researching for an English project and was impressed that she was the first African American woman to sell over a million copies of a book. I wondered why I had never heard of her and why her books weren’t in my school or local library. Coincidentally, we share the same birthday, which helped me remember her. Years later, I found The Street in my college library and appreciated it academically but didn’t connect with it personally. I’m not sure why; it might have just been the headspace I was in as a college student intellectualizing everything. Finally, a few years ago, before knowing about the Ann Petry Prize, I read her novel The Narrows and felt a deeper personal connection to that than The Street. Maybe The Narrows resonated because it focuses on an interracial relationship, and I was and still am in an interracial relationship. Either way, I found The Narrows very readable, the characters authentic, and the social commentary felt relevant to contemporary times, even though the book was set in 1950s New England. But I still want to read The Street again, and also delve into some of Ann Petry’s other books.
Rachel León
Which writers have influenced you? Were there any novels you looked to for inspiration as you worked on this one? I’m especially curious if there were any that dealt with memory that informed how you tackled that on the page.
Esinam Bediako
Writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chang Rae Lee, and Ama Ata Aidoo have influenced me by legitimizing the stories I want to tell. If Adichie and Aidoo can write about Nigerian and Ghanaian culture, if Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang Rae Lee can write novels that intertwine the personal and the historical and that address the experience living between two cultures in America, then maybe my story about a Ghanaian American girl isn’t so odd.
In terms of memory and its representation, Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending and Chang Rae Lee’s A Gesture Life were particularly impactful. Both novels explore how protagonists grapple with their own histories, often blurring the lines between the fallibility of memory and deliberate obfuscation or denial. Their treatment of memory and secrecy gave me insight into how characters might reinterpret or distort their pasts.
Additionally, at the advice of the amazing novelist Taylor Larsen, who helped me with revisions, I read Elizabeth Strout’s Oh, William! to delve deeper into the concept of voice and the nuances of accessing a character’s innermost thoughts. Strout’s portrayal of internal dialogue and personal reflection really blew me away. I wouldn’t say I emulated her style; Lucy and Akosua have totally different voices, and I have a ways to go before I can even begin to approach the level of skill of Elizabeth Strout. However, I appreciated that Lucy feels earnest and true—she thinks she is a reliable narrator, even if she isn’t. I wanted Akosua to come across that way, too, as someone who wasn’t trying to manipulate her reader/listener but was telling her truth and exploring her histories as honestly as she knew how.
Rachel León
In addition to writing fiction, you also write nonfiction and poetry. Is there a genre you prefer? I’m also wondering if writing across genre factors into your process in some way.
Esinam Bediako
Fiction is always number one in my heart. It’s the genre I gravitate towards the most and where I feel most at home. Poetry, on the other hand, is something I can only write during certain periods, usually to process something personal. It’s the same with the essays I write. I wrote a chapbook of essays and poetry that’s going to be published by Porkbelly Press late this year or next year, and I’m proud of it, but I also kind of feel like, “Okay, I’m done. I have no more poetry or essays in me,” whereas with fiction, I always have ideas, whether they pan out or not.
I do think writing poetry helps with my prose. When I’m writing prose, I try to pay attention to the rhythm and speed of not just individual sentences but entire scenes. I think I’m more conscious of the flow and the musicality of my writing because of writing poetry. Plus, poetry pushes me to create images that evoke strong feelings, which is something I try to carry over into my fiction. So, even though fiction is my main focus, dabbling in poetry and nonfiction definitely enriches my overall writing process.
FICTION
Blood on the Brain
By Esinam Bediako
Red Hen Press
Published September 17, 2024
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