A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing

June 1, 2022

In A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing, poet Daniel parses multiple identities and diverse family roots as she recounts her journey from Nigeria to England to the United States (75,000-copy first printing). The breakout star of Girls Trip and the first Black female stand-up comedian to host Saturday Night Live, Haddish proclaims I Curse You with Joy in offering an essay collection that ranges from her viral head-shaving video on Instagram to reconnecting with a father she hadn't seen for years (225,000-copy first printing). In Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Friends star Perry goes all out to discuss his struggle with addiction while offering backstage anecdotes about the mega-hit sitcom (one-million--copy first printing). Flying high as social media director at a publishing house, Sehee still felt anxious and exhausted--"I don't know, I'm--what's the word--depressed?"--and records her conversations with her therapist in I Want To Die but I Want To Eat Tteokbokki, a huge best seller in South Korea (75,000-copy first printing). Winner of the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award, Shakur's When They Tell You To Be Good unfolds the coming of age of a queer, Jamaican American freelance journalist/essayist who relates the impact of his family's emigration, the murder of his biological father, the willing-out of deep family secrets, and his own radicalization. Joining a rising tide of new titles examining workplace discontent, Private Equity recounts Chinese immigrant Sun's rapid disillusionment with the Wall Street investment job she landed after graduating from MIT and her breakaway to find a better life (65,000-copy first printing). As recounted in Lost to the World, Taseer was kidnapped in 2011 shortly after the assassination of his father, the governor of the Indian state of Punjab, and held for over four years by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a Taliban-affiliated Uzbek terrorist group horrified that he had spoken in defense of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy.

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Starred review from July 25, 2022
In her incandescent debut, Nigerian poet Daniel recounts her life on three continents, surrounded by stories that made up the fabric of her African upbringing. Daniel was born in Maiduguri, Nigeria—the birthplace of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram— and her parents, members of the Longuda and Fulani tribes, taught at the city’s university until the destabilized Nigerian dollar dried up their salaries. The family’s nomadlike existence began when they uprooted to Reading, England, in 1988, where her parents entered doctoral programs. Painting a lyrical study in contrasts—“England looked blanched, like all color had been boiled out... it lacked the characteristic angry, red Nigerian dust that gets into everything”—Daniel recounts how her mother, Saratu, centered West African traditions in food, clothing, and social interactions. When a new academic position for her father took them to Nashville, Tenn., her parents’ Christian evangelicalism created a sense of “apocalyptic paranoia” in their home (secular TV shows, books, and other pastimes were prohibited). Generous doses of Nigerian history are stitched between personal anecdotes as Daniel addresses racism in the U.S. and the long arc of finding her identity as an “American-African”: “I don’t think I believe in God; I don’t know about goddesses. I am grown; on my own.” This is a gem. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency.

Starred review from October 1, 2022
A powerful memoir of a life driven by "a spirit of...extreme exophoria--that uncontrollable tendency of eyes to gaze outward." In her debut book, Daniel, a duel citizen of Nigeria and the U.S., tracks her life across Africa, Europe, and North America. In pursuit of a better life, her parents, who were professors at the university in Maiduguri ("birthplace of Boko Haram, the terrorist militia that specializes in kidnapping the girl child"), moved Daniel and her siblings to England, which she found "blanched, like all color had been boiled out of it," compared to the "angry red" of her native land. Throughout the enchanting narrative, Daniel vividly shares her and her family's traditions, customs, and religious views. However, in order to assimilate to English culture, she and her family had to forego many elements of Nigerian culture, including those of her tribe, Hausa-Fulani. The author writes potently about being "acutely wounded by the separation from my culture." After nearly 10 years in England, her parents decided to move again, this time to Nashville. Daniel chronicles the racism she experienced and describes how she changed her first name to Mary-Alice in order to further assimilate. During return trips to Nigeria, the author began to feel embarrassment for being "noticeably Westernized," while in the U.S., she felt "embarrassed by being identifiably African." Overall, she believed she "no longer belonged anywhere." Daniel writes memorably about how her religious views have changed over the years and ponders how different she might feel had she stayed in Nigeria. "My immediate family and I have shared a dozen residences across three continents," she writes. A few pages later, she reflects that "because I come from nomads, I have a tenuous, less tactile relationship with place." Daniel also acknowledges how, as immigrants, she and her family are "integral, even when we are not integrated." Today, the author is "semi-settled" in California, a place that she has chosen for herself. An absolutely fascinating work from a gifted storyteller.

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Starred review from October 15, 2022
After publishing a book of poetry, Daniel turns her poetic sensibilities onto herself in this mash-up of memoir and narrative nonfiction. Born in Nigeria to two professors, Daniel and her family lived a comfortable existence until the country's destabilization forced them to relocate to England in 1988. A few short years later, her father found a teaching position in Tennessee, uprooting the family once again. Finding community in these places proved difficult, with few other Nigerians or even people of color nearby. Daniel uses her life on three different continents to reflect on the history of Nigeria, contemplate ideas of ""otherness"" and race, and explore religion. Her family's tribal history, convoluted by official versus cultural designations, her strict Christian upbringing in places people assume she is a heathen or Muslim, and her ostracism in the U.S. by both white and Black children leave Daniel in the grey area of life, navigating competing identities until she comes into her own, which she refers to as American African. While the jumble of memoir and history may throw some readers, they'll find writing so beautiful it's worth the price of admission. Readers who enjoyed memoirs like Albert Samaha's Concepcion (2021) will love this.

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