A little while ago I read Africa Risen, a collection of short stories featuring authors from Africa focusing on the African Diaspora. It was a wonderful collection with a few authors I wanted to keep track of. One of whom was Tlotlo Tsmaase, who wrote a story called “Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition).” So when I saw that she was writing a novel, I just had to get my hands on it. Womb City is an incredibly dense and discombobulating debut that succeeds at some things while suffering from a few first-novel issues.
In this future, bodies are property and minds are not permanently tethered to the body they are born into. Nelah inhabits the body of another woman. She has no idea who this woman was in a past life, nor does she have many memories of her own life previous to inhabiting this body. She is a rising star within architecture, and she’s about to have a child with her husband who is a government employee. She is living the life, even to the point of having an affair with the charismatic and sexy Jasnith Koshal though that’s becoming more of a problem for her as she tries to settle down. But after winning and award for an architectural design, Nelah goes on a bender with Janith that ends in a hit-and-run. Though she tries to run, a curse starts to haunt her that threatens to expose her misdeeds to her husband and the world around her. It even starts to kill the ones she loves dearest. Who will Nelah become to stop the curse?
Tsamaase is an incredible writer. She captures the mental state of her characters vividly. Tsamaase knows how to place the reader inside the brain of her characters and let it ride. The first few chapters are a haze as Nelah navigates a few days of her life. There are mundane tasks to be completed, birth pods to visits, awkward conversations with family members, and a perceived attempt to steal a baby from a hospital. Tsamaase spends time highlighting how the body swapping technology employed has an insane set of rules that it’s hard to keep track of everything going on, especially mundane tasks. It’s a whirlwind of information that isn’t entirely explained. This isn’t Tsamaase’s fault as much as it seems to be built into the design of the system, Nelah truly doesn’t know what is considered stepping over the line, what is considered a crime, or just an everyday reaction. Throw in the fact that virtual reality machines are employed to predict whether you are someone capable of committing a crime by making you live through whole days at a time similar to a normal day, and it’s a confusing nightmare. I think Tsamaase’s instinct to let it play out is correct even if it causes the reader to bounce off of it initially. Letting the worldbuilding overwhelm the reader without any explanation until later is an immersive experience that lets you live it through Nelah’s eyes.
And while Tsamaase did a lot of heavy lifting to keep me interested, the beginning did flounder a little bit as the pace slowed. A lot of time is spent detailing Nelah’s life, the people she interacts with, what she thinks of them, what she thinks they think of her, and all that good internal stuff. It really solidifies who Nelah is, how she wants to be seen, and how the world is stacked against her (and any non-male really). It’s a brutal life, and Tsamaase delivers it wholesale. But it does drag a little bit because you are watching Nelah just face bullshit at every turn, and the inciting incident is still a little ways away. It helps that Nelah herself is a bit flawed, it drew me in. While we understand these systems as encompassing the entirety of her world, she takes it as a personal slight against her. This becomes a problem later in the book for me on a thematic level, but it feels like a good character choice.
The plot is a hurricane, with blasting winds of events and a calm but furious eye that passes over sporadically. Things really begin to kick off after the hit and run as an evil force begins to haunt Nelah and Jasnith. The horror elements are brilliant and terrifying. The ghost that follows Nelah is powerful and relishes the strength they have achieved in death. Tsamaase really digs into the gore, painting disgusting pictures of bodies and the ways they can be torn apart. It’s not so much revelry as it feels like a fact of life. Placed in a story about minds that can hop bodies over generations and the mortality becomes ultra clear. Even in a world that has transcended the flesh; pain, harm, and death are still very real. It was a great way to ground the threat to Nelah and Jansith. And the mysteries and conspiracies that are unraveled by the duo are as fun as they are daunting. But the lulls occur when the characters are forced to wait something out. And they aren’t bad lulls, but they are a bit noticeable. Especially when the ending becomes a speedrun for all of the reveals. Again, great reveals, but they came hard and fast.
Tsamaase explores some pretty heavy themes when it comes to bodily autonomy and who gets to exert power over whom. The gender relations (as in the real world) are totally fucked, and the body-swapping system cements some of the greater problems into a nigh unbreakable caste system that tracks the movement of every woman. Crimes are tracked by the physical flesh too, not just the mind that inhabits it. If you inhabit the body that has participated in a crime previous to your possession of it, then you’re on a special list. By the way, you don’t really get to choose the body you inhabit. If you don’t have a body, you exist in a sort of limbo until one becomes available. This leads to seems pretty fucking terrible stuff involving unwanted children and their bodies becomes products after the age of 18, sold to the next person in line, while those children are shunted into limbo. The use of virtual reality to test for crime potential to the point where it distorts your perception of reality was a terrifying thought, that I wish it was expanded upon a little more through the story. It serves as a nice shock in the beginning that isn’t really brought up again besides the threat of it happening. The story didn’t need more active suffering on Nelah’s part, but I think showing that sort of system in a broader fashion would have brought a deeper sense of unease to the world, though it would have been hard to pull off without “it was all just a dream,” every damn time it occurred.
And I think this is where a couple of my complaints rear their head the most. Nelah, while an interesting character, had a very limited perspective on the situation. The narrative slowly unravels more and more of the world to her, but so much of the suffering is focused on her position within society. There were discussions of the system as it affects everyone, but so much of it was internalized through Nelah’s thoughts, that they got lost within her own personal concerns. This also confused the rapid pace of the conclusion for me specifically. While I enjoyed the final act, it brought together some of the characters for a reckoning and a revelation by Nelah, so much of the pain and retribution felt personalized. I think it would have been an interesting contradiction, but it didn’t feel that purposeful.
Overall, I enjoyed Womb City despite its wonky nature. Tsamaase’s writing is some of my favorite recently and I will pick up anything she does. The world was dark, and filled with both Christian and African religions. The dystopia was terrifying even if it felt a little lop-sided. It explored the ramifications of such a system, and how it would control the increasing number of minds, while the body stock was limited. The people in charge of it are who you would expect, giving the “conspiracy” a realness to it. I am glad to have finally read it. If you’re curious, I don’t think you should turn away. It’s a good showcase of Tsamaase’s writing ability, and I’m even more interested in what she will bring to us in the future which is rapidly becoming her nightmare.
Rating: Womb City – I liked it despite its unevenness
-Alex
