An ambitious novel of forbidden romance in colonial Ghana that blends the personal and political to mixed effect.
A teenage boy falls in love and battles with his father in the years leading up to Ghana’s independence.
In this debut novel, Wright tells the story of Ani Baknu, son of a privileged Ghanaian couple. The book opens in 1948, when the country is still under British rule, but Ani and his friends have to contend with the political violence in Accra. Ani’s more immediate problem is his overbearing father, Kofi, who wants to control his career path, love life, and loyalties. Ani, determined to chart his own course, begins dating Deka Delmojus, the daughter of his father’s longtime antagonist. Ani and Deka’s relationship deepens (He tells her: “After my mother, you’re the only one I trust to give me support. You’re the only one I trust to give me comfort. You’re the only one I trust to give me true love”). Kofi tries to split up the couple, and the girl finds herself the target of increasingly violent attacks. Ani, working with the police and learning to take responsibility for himself (“My dad shouldn’t be the game changer in my own game”), investigates the assaults and moves toward building a future with Deka. He ultimately celebrates his own independence along with that of Ghana. Wright’s Ani, a multilayered character, draws out the reader’s sympathies, despite his Hamlet-like tendency to complain instead of act and his frequent misreading of Deka’s behavior. Unfortunately, the book’s other characters are not as fully realized. Both the narrative (“An outright refusal would engender violence, but acceptance would go against his sense of honesty and integrity”; “On setting his eyes on his father, he beheld a wild streak etched on his face, and his eyes were darkened like the mud waters after the rains”) and the dialogue (“I’ve grappled with my father’s pugnacious attitude. Unfortunately, I’ve failed to uncover reasons for his behavior”; “Your foreboding look smothered my anger. I have too much regard for you, Deka”) are frequently awkward and stilted. While Wright expertly juxtaposes a human coming-of-age tale with a country’s, the unpolished writing style and insufficiently developed supporting characters and motivations keep the story from being an entirely enjoyable read.
An ambitious novel of forbidden romance in colonial Ghana that blends the personal and political to mixed effect.Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-940354-39-2
Page Count: 194
Publisher: New Friends Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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