A tragicomedy that blends traditional customs and family intrigue.
In her first play, shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Akpabio (Little Devils, 2013, etc.) crafts a modern morality tale about maternity, magic and being careful what you wish for.
Set largely in 2009, this tragicomedy centers on the Umoh family of Lagos, Nigeria, and draws on folk tales, Shakespearean tragedy, and the works of the poet and novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Businessman Aniekan and his wife, Celia, have been blessed with three daughters—but only after long years of barrenness. The play takes perhaps too much for granted in its line “We all know what childlessness means to the African woman,” but its characters’ effusive expressions of gratitude to God reinforce the primacy of parenthood. Celia, who secretly underwent a hysterectomy following a miscarriage, finally accepts that she cannot have more children, but her mother-in-law keeps pressuring her to bear a son; she hints that if Celia cannot produce an heir, Ani must take a second wife. The timing then seems suspect when Ani’s former secretary announces that he fathered her son, Ubong, eight years ago. Ani wants to adopt Ubong, but a jealous Celia employs a babalawo, a witch doctor, to prevent the boy from infiltrating the family. In the unfolding conspiracy to install Ubong or keep him out, many characters turn out to be not quite what they seem. Some monologues can seem overcomplicated, especially as Ani’s friend Gerry (jokingly referred to as “Sherlock Holmes”) sets out the scheming step by step. This leads to overlong text blocks, with stage directions and dialogue the only way of cramming in descriptions and machinations. The Nigerian names and British vocabulary may prove challenging, while accurate recording of African English means article and preposition use are inconsistent. Still, Akpabio successfully weaves in local superstitions and speech patterns. An interfering mother-in-law and a servant speaking in dialect (“Sir, Mama say she wan rest. She go eat later”) may seem like clichés, but they are two of the more amusing characters and bring to mind Adichie’s comic achievements. However, Akpabio maintains an appropriately bittersweet tone, even when a poisoning plot looks set to follow Hamlet into darker territory.
A tragicomedy that blends traditional customs and family intrigue.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2009
ISBN: 978-1847485748
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Athena Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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