Every time we leave our front door, we must face who we are and how that exists within our psyche. Musa Okwonga attempts to express that with In the End it Was All About Love. He toes the line between memoir and novel, which acts, at first, as a love-letter to Berlin. The book is not just a steady introduction to the multiculturalism of the city Musa Okwonga calls home but acts as a placeholder for the advice he gives himself. The novel personifies Berlin, humanizes the narrator, and brings the reader into the inner workings of a man struggling to figure out how his identity is compatible with the city he so loves.

Written in such a world-creating way, Okwonga speaks directly to the reader and powerfully uses the second-person point-of-view. This perspective humanizes the narrator and makes the unique situations portrayed in each subsequent section relatable. In the section “Take Your Joy Where You Can,” Okwonga defines relatability; it is a mundane moment of meeting up with old friends, and while this moment is uniquely his, the point of view makes it feel like the moment is ours as well.

Okwonga cleverly uses prose and poetry; the novel is divided into three sections, the beginning of each marked by a preparatory poem. Okwonga relies on a cutthroat and straightforward approach to playful linguistics to address the reader and humanize the narrator. The word-play of “a blizzard of syllables” is one example of the self-reflexivity that drives the narrator on his path to discovery. Clichés are essential throughout; the narrator recognizes that clichés are a part of life and uses them pointedly. At the start of the book, he tells us what each part is about and guides us through his psyche. Each part is pointed and intentional.

While not wholly independent, the various prose blocks are largely unrelated, but Berlin’s urban context ties everything together. Each subtitle builds on the connection that Okwonga has forged with the reader and serves as its own micro-story within the larger and overarching narrative. The block of prose entitled “Freedom of Movement” is a boundless example of this: a reference to a previous dream, a descriptive scene of the therapist and the office, “Freedom of Movement” is a microcosm of the anxiety-laden environment that Okwonga immerses the reader in. In opposition to this anxiety, each block of prose functions as a mantra, a section of advice to the reader and Okwonga that allows both world and narrative building and reminds us all to breathe. 

These mantras–which are largely personal– reveal a piece of the narrator’s identity and are vital in showing how his identity fits into the city of Berlin. Each mantra leaves us asking whether Okwonga has built his identity around an idea of Berlin rather than the reality of it. Okwonga depicts Berlin’s shifting identity and how it impacts him; his description of the city’s multiculturalism offers layers he can exist between. In the section “Today, Berlin Punches You in the Stomach,” he calmly states, “Today, Berlin punches you in the stomach.” He wants the readers, and perhaps himself, to remember that there is more to the city than he lets on, and sooner or later, we’re all going to find out. Okwonga builds the identity of the city and himself concurrently. He relies on sound imagery to further create the essence of Berlin: “You love surprising people who come to Berlin, who expect to hear the bass drum and end up entranced by birdsong.” Okwonga contrasts sounds to drive home his point that Berlin is complicated. This imagery allows the reader to think about the city’s complexity and sit between the images and feel immersed in Okwonga’s vision of Berlin. 

Initially, the plot is loose and broad, and as each part wraps up, the story becomes narrower, culminating towards the final moments of reconciliation. The narrator guides the reader as each moment becomes increasingly hyper-specific; he allows us to get comfortable as the narrative becomes progressively unambiguous. The poem that begins part two begins to peel away any comfort the reader found in the previous section, and the novel becomes more pointed than ever before. It expresses colonialism and racism in physical symptoms; communicated through injuries, these abstract feelings of oppression become more concrete, tangible even. 

Okwonga also heavily relies on the readers settling into the comfort of the point of view to peel away his psyche, reveal his race, sexuality, fears, and very being. His perspective is absorbing; in “Celebrate Every Bill,” Okwonga relies on this absorption to move the reader to tears as he poetically waxes about identity and money and how they exist concurrently. By the final and third part, the narrator relies on the reader’s pure and intense relation to his story. Though part three is a hyper-specific and individual narrative, our deep investment encourages us to search for some connection. We see all previous parts heading towards the memoir’s cumulative anxiety: the moment of reconciliation with his dead father, who is buried in Uganda. Throughout the book, Okwonga references and muses the pain of losing his father, including the fear of being the same age as his father when he passed. Okwonga is acerbic in his fears: “There is a specific time and date you have been fearing for much of your adult life. When that moment passes, you will be precisely one second older than your father was when he died, and you will have precisely no idea what to do next.” This anxiety is the peak of Okwonga’s identity and guides the reader into the last part of the book, the moment of truth.

The book ends with Okwonga giving a speech to his family members in Uganda. The speech is cathartic, and by addressing it to the reader, Okwonga makes the speech even more powerful. This final section, “In the End it Was All About Love,” ends with a moment of self-reflexivity; Okwonga is learning, and he recognizes his needs. As readers, we forge a connection with Okwonga; when he finally cries, it acts as the final moment of release for both narrator and reader.

While the novel is a love letter to Berlin, the ending expresses that home is much more abstract than a city. The connection between Okwonga’s home in Berlin and his home in Uganda and everything in between allows the narrative to circle back and tie up a question posed at the start: why does he feel like the “other?” Through his abstraction of home, Okwonga wants us to know that Berlin was merely the backdrop, and in the end, it wasn’t about Berlin. It was about love.