Cover of Ghostroots
    FictionGothic FictionHistorical FictionHorror

    Ghostroots

    by Aguda, ‘Pemi
    “Ghostroots” by ‘Pemi Aguda is a debut short story collection set in Lagos, Nigeria, blending the mundane with the supernatural. The twelve stories explore themes of inheritance, maternal lineage, and haunting legacies, often focusing on women grappling with familial and societal burdens. Aguda’s prose weaves unsettling yet deeply human narratives, where everyday life intersects with spectral presences. Notable stories include “Breastmilk,” which delves into generational trauma. The collection has been praised for its elegant voice and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, marking Aguda as a significant new voice in contemporary literature.

    The chap­ter opens with the pro­tag­o­nist, a 26-year-old woman, dis­cov­er­ing her first pim­ple and fix­at­ing on its pres­ence. As she exam­ines the blem­ish, her moth­er unex­pect­ed­ly calls her “Agnes,” a name that does not belong to her. This unset­tling moment occurs dur­ing a mun­dane activ­i­ty of sort­ing beans, where the pro­tag­o­nist takes plea­sure in remov­ing and killing wee­vils, draw­ing a par­al­lel to soci­etal exclu­sion. The moth­er’s sud­den use of the name Agnes, fol­lowed by her silent retreat, intro­duces an air of mys­tery and unease, hint­ing at unre­solved fam­i­ly his­to­ry.

    Lat­er, the pro­tag­o­nist learns from her father that Agnes was her mater­nal grand­moth­er, who died when her moth­er was young. The father’s dis­mis­sive atti­tude reflects a gen­er­a­tional silence com­mon in their Niger­ian Pen­te­costal fam­i­ly, where past trau­mas and his­to­ries are often left unspo­ken. The pro­tag­o­nist’s curios­i­ty about Agnes grows, espe­cial­ly as her moth­er con­tin­ues to act strange­ly, fur­ther dis­tanc­ing her­self. The pim­ple becomes a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of this unre­solved ten­sion, sym­bol­iz­ing the pro­tag­o­nist’s grow­ing aware­ness of her fam­i­ly’s hid­den past.

    The ten­sion esca­lates when the moth­er calls the pro­tag­o­nist “Agnes” a sec­ond time, this time in can­dle­light dur­ing a pow­er out­age. The moth­er’s ter­ri­fied reac­tion sug­gests she sees her deceased moth­er in the pro­tag­o­nist, deep­en­ing the mys­tery. The father’s vague expla­na­tion about the resem­blance between the pro­tag­o­nist and Agnes only adds to the con­fu­sion. The pro­tag­o­nist’s attempts to under­stand her moth­er’s behav­ior are met with eva­sion, leav­ing her to grap­ple with the weight of inher­it­ed trau­ma and the unan­swered ques­tions about her grand­moth­er’s life and death.

    In the final sec­tion, the pro­tag­o­nist’s fix­a­tion on the pim­ple mir­rors her grow­ing obses­sion with her fam­i­ly’s past. Her destruc­tive act in a restau­rant bathroom—flooding it with tis­sue and newspaper—symbolizes her frus­tra­tion and desire to dis­rupt the silence sur­round­ing Agnes. The chap­ter con­cludes with the pim­ple mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­pear­ing, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist to search for answers on her own. The unre­solved ten­sion between the pro­tag­o­nist and her moth­er, cou­pled with the van­ish­ing pim­ple, under­scores the themes of iden­ti­ty, mem­o­ry, and the haunt­ing nature of unspo­ken his­to­ries.

    FAQs

    • 1. What is the significance of the protagonist’s pimple, and how does it relate to the broader themes of the chapter?

      Answer:
      The pimple serves as a physical manifestation of the protagonist’s emerging identity crisis and connection to her maternal lineage. Initially treated as a foreign nuisance (“the first pimple of your life”), its persistent presence parallels the protagonist’s growing awareness of her resemblance to her deceased grandmother Agnes. The pimple’s eventual disappearance after the bathroom flooding incident suggests a symbolic cleansing or transformation. This mirrors the chapter’s exploration of inherited trauma, familial resemblance, and the protagonist’s struggle with her own identity separate from her mother’s unresolved grief.

      2. Analyze the protagonist’s behavior with the beans and weevils. What does this reveal about her character and psychological state?

      Answer:
      The bean-sorting ritual reveals the protagonist’s meticulous nature and latent aggression. Her systematic segregation of “good beans” from “leper” weevils demonstrates a desire for control and order, while her enjoyment of crushing the weevils (“you love to feel them die”) suggests suppressed anger. This violent micromanagement mirrors her mother’s attempt to compartmentalize painful memories of Agnes. The activity also serves as a metaphor for societal exclusion, reflecting how Nigerian Pentecostal families often isolate themselves from “grimy pasts” and ancestral histories, as mentioned in the father’s commentary about withheld family histories.

      3. How does the author use lighting and visual perception to create psychological tension in the candlelight scene?

      Answer:
      The candlelight scene masterfully employs shifting perspectives to build unease. The protagonist’s alternating eye closure creates a fractured visual experience (“Through your left eye… Through your right eye”), mirroring her mother’s fragmented perception of her as both daughter and ghost. The flickering flame becomes a psychological trigger, its movement evoking ancestral presence. The illumination transforms from practical light source to symbolic device when heat “licks at” the pimple, suggesting supernatural recognition. This visual tension culminates in the mother’s terrified retreat, demonstrating how sensory details can unveil buried trauma more powerfully than dialogue.

      4. What is the symbolic meaning behind the protagonist’s bathroom destruction at the restaurant, and how does this act relate to her mother’s behavior?

      Answer:
      The bathroom flooding represents a subconscious rebellion against containment and inherited suffering. By deliberately clogging the toilet with tissue and newspapers (including violent headlines), the protagonist enacts a symbolic purge of societal and familial constraints. This mirrors her mother’s retreats to locked spaces when confronted with Agnes’ memory. Both women use bathrooms as psychological escape valves - the mother hides in the guest bathroom, while the daughter creates literal emotional overflow. The act foreshadows the pimple’s disappearance, suggesting that destructive release may precede transformation, though the consequences of such outbursts remain ominously unaddressed as she walks away from the flooding.

      5. Evaluate how the chapter handles the theme of intergenerational trauma through its narrative structure.

      Answer:
      The chapter structures intergenerational trauma as a haunting through three progressive encounters: First, the mother’s accidental naming; second, the candlelit recognition scene; third, the father’s reluctant explanations. This tripartite structure mirrors trauma’s insidious recurrence. Physical resemblance (the pimple) becomes a conduit for unresolved grief, showing how trauma bypasses verbal communication to manifest somatically. The narrative’s nonlinear progression - jumping between mundane bean-sorting, eerie recognitions, and destructive outbursts - replicates trauma’s disruptive nature. By withholding Agnes’ full story while emphasizing visceral reactions, the text demonstrates how trauma persists through physiological responses (the mother’s terror) more vividly than through recounted histories.

    Quotes

    • 1. “You have just turned twenty-six, why now? Tonight, your mother calls you Agnes for the first time. Agnes is not your name.”

      This opening moment introduces the central mystery of the chapter—the protagonist’s sudden identification with a ghost from their mother’s past. The juxtaposition of a mundane pimple with this profound naming rupture sets the tone for the exploration of inherited trauma and identity.

      2. “If you took a poll of your friends, three out of five would be similarly ignorant of these histories of parents who moved from somewhere to Lagos, left behind religions and curses and distant cousins and grimy pasts.”

      This insightful observation captures the generational disconnect common in diasporic or urbanizing families, where painful histories are buried rather than processed. It frames the protagonist’s personal story within a broader cultural context of silenced inheritances.

      3. “Through your left eye, you see her eyes widen. Through your right eye, you see her mouth open. Through both eyes, you see terror spread over her face, the way it does when a flying cockroach is in the vicinity.”

      This visceral description of the mother’s second recognition moment powerfully conveys how trauma can collapse time—the mother isn’t just seeing her child, but reliving some past horror. The insect comparison suggests primal, instinctive fear.

      4. “When the last one has landed on top of the others, white on white on white, squeeze up the newspaper and throw it in too. Flush again. Watch the water rise to seat level.”

      The protagonist’s destructive bathroom act symbolizes both their suppressed rage and a desire to flood out hidden truths. The clinical description of this transgressive act mirrors the way family secrets eventually overflow their containers despite attempts to flush them away.

      5. “Your unmoisturized fingers are dry and harsh against your soft skin, so you trail e…”

      This truncated final line (appearing intentionally incomplete) poignantly reflects the chapter’s themes—the roughness of confronting buried histories, the incompleteness of personal and familial narratives, and the physicality of memory’s manifestations on the body.

    Quotes

    1. “You have just turned twenty-six, why now? Tonight, your mother calls you Agnes for the first time. Agnes is not your name.”

    This opening moment introduces the central mystery of the chapter—the protagonist’s sudden identification with a ghost from their mother’s past. The juxtaposition of a mundane pimple with this profound naming rupture sets the tone for the exploration of inherited trauma and identity.

    2. “If you took a poll of your friends, three out of five would be similarly ignorant of these histories of parents who moved from somewhere to Lagos, left behind religions and curses and distant cousins and grimy pasts.”

    This insightful observation captures the generational disconnect common in diasporic or urbanizing families, where painful histories are buried rather than processed. It frames the protagonist’s personal story within a broader cultural context of silenced inheritances.

    3. “Through your left eye, you see her eyes widen. Through your right eye, you see her mouth open. Through both eyes, you see terror spread over her face, the way it does when a flying cockroach is in the vicinity.”

    This visceral description of the mother’s second recognition moment powerfully conveys how trauma can collapse time—the mother isn’t just seeing her child, but reliving some past horror. The insect comparison suggests primal, instinctive fear.

    4. “When the last one has landed on top of the others, white on white on white, squeeze up the newspaper and throw it in too. Flush again. Watch the water rise to seat level.”

    The protagonist’s destructive bathroom act symbolizes both their suppressed rage and a desire to flood out hidden truths. The clinical description of this transgressive act mirrors the way family secrets eventually overflow their containers despite attempts to flush them away.

    5. “Your unmoisturized fingers are dry and harsh against your soft skin, so you trail e…”

    This truncated final line (appearing intentionally incomplete) poignantly reflects the chapter’s themes—the roughness of confronting buried histories, the incompleteness of personal and familial narratives, and the physicality of memory’s manifestations on the body.

    FAQs

    1. What is the significance of the protagonist’s pimple, and how does it relate to the broader themes of the chapter?

    Answer:
    The pimple serves as a physical manifestation of the protagonist’s emerging identity crisis and connection to her maternal lineage. Initially treated as a foreign nuisance (“the first pimple of your life”), its persistent presence parallels the protagonist’s growing awareness of her resemblance to her deceased grandmother Agnes. The pimple’s eventual disappearance after the bathroom flooding incident suggests a symbolic cleansing or transformation. This mirrors the chapter’s exploration of inherited trauma, familial resemblance, and the protagonist’s struggle with her own identity separate from her mother’s unresolved grief.

    2. Analyze the protagonist’s behavior with the beans and weevils. What does this reveal about her character and psychological state?

    Answer:
    The bean-sorting ritual reveals the protagonist’s meticulous nature and latent aggression. Her systematic segregation of “good beans” from “leper” weevils demonstrates a desire for control and order, while her enjoyment of crushing the weevils (“you love to feel them die”) suggests suppressed anger. This violent micromanagement mirrors her mother’s attempt to compartmentalize painful memories of Agnes. The activity also serves as a metaphor for societal exclusion, reflecting how Nigerian Pentecostal families often isolate themselves from “grimy pasts” and ancestral histories, as mentioned in the father’s commentary about withheld family histories.

    3. How does the author use lighting and visual perception to create psychological tension in the candlelight scene?

    Answer:
    The candlelight scene masterfully employs shifting perspectives to build unease. The protagonist’s alternating eye closure creates a fractured visual experience (“Through your left eye… Through your right eye”), mirroring her mother’s fragmented perception of her as both daughter and ghost. The flickering flame becomes a psychological trigger, its movement evoking ancestral presence. The illumination transforms from practical light source to symbolic device when heat “licks at” the pimple, suggesting supernatural recognition. This visual tension culminates in the mother’s terrified retreat, demonstrating how sensory details can unveil buried trauma more powerfully than dialogue.

    4. What is the symbolic meaning behind the protagonist’s bathroom destruction at the restaurant, and how does this act relate to her mother’s behavior?

    Answer:
    The bathroom flooding represents a subconscious rebellion against containment and inherited suffering. By deliberately clogging the toilet with tissue and newspapers (including violent headlines), the protagonist enacts a symbolic purge of societal and familial constraints. This mirrors her mother’s retreats to locked spaces when confronted with Agnes’ memory. Both women use bathrooms as psychological escape valves - the mother hides in the guest bathroom, while the daughter creates literal emotional overflow. The act foreshadows the pimple’s disappearance, suggesting that destructive release may precede transformation, though the consequences of such outbursts remain ominously unaddressed as she walks away from the flooding.

    5. Evaluate how the chapter handles the theme of intergenerational trauma through its narrative structure.

    Answer:
    The chapter structures intergenerational trauma as a haunting through three progressive encounters: First, the mother’s accidental naming; second, the candlelit recognition scene; third, the father’s reluctant explanations. This tripartite structure mirrors trauma’s insidious recurrence. Physical resemblance (the pimple) becomes a conduit for unresolved grief, showing how trauma bypasses verbal communication to manifest somatically. The narrative’s nonlinear progression - jumping between mundane bean-sorting, eerie recognitions, and destructive outbursts - replicates trauma’s disruptive nature. By withholding Agnes’ full story while emphasizing visceral reactions, the text demonstrates how trauma persists through physiological responses (the mother’s terror) more vividly than through recounted histories.

    Note