At least half of the novel, which hews rather closely to its protagonist’s consciousness, consists of ideas about how to live, listen, think, and see well. Tunde never crosses Harvard Yard without remembering those enslaved by the university. His marital problems—“complacency,” “fear of abandonment”—are unpacked in cruelty-free sessions of couples counselling. So keen is his conscience that even the sight of preschoolers led via a walking rope reminds him of “prisoners being transferred . . . a forced march to the unending tune of ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’ ” It’s tempting to characterize the novel as what the critic Becca Rothfeld calls “sanctimony literature,” a mode of fiction designed to showcase the author’s ethical awareness. But there’s more going on than virtue signalling. Tunde’s worries over various moral problems—art restitution, the portrayal of the dead, artificial intelligence—converge on a dilemma that bedevils both him and his creator: Is there a way to represent the world and not “cannibalize the lives of others”?
