Less Than What You Once Were

Less Than What You Once Were begins in a pivotal moment for the speaker—during the 2008 "Battle of N'Djamena" in Chad's capital. This destabilizing experience—in which the speaker's home is broken into—results in the family embarking on a months-long departure from the place, and the narrative begins to cycle through childhood memories, from the first night when Brown lands at N'Djamena's airport as an eight-year-old boy to the failed attempt at bird hunting with a slingshot. These centerin...