Beyond hitting all the beats of a novel of its size and style, Behold the Dreamers is full of rich details of immigrant life. Neni’s interior life is written out explicitly – she sings while she irons her husband’s shirts and applies lipstick on her way to African parties, whether they be “a naming ceremony in the Bronx” or “a death celebration in Yonkers for someone who died in Africa and whom practically none of the guests knew”. Jende takes “the last piece of plantain from the plate” and uses it “to clean the tomato sauce bowl, and rush it, together with the last piece of chicken, into his mouth”... On Christmas morning the Jongas eat fried ripe plantains and beans and exchange no gifts... Their natural references are also steeped in African imagery, most eye-catchingly when Mbue describes Jende’s internal grin as “wider than the Great Rift Valley.”