Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

A little off topic, I am concurrently reading Jeet Thatil's Narcopolis. That too is a bit polarizing amidst those joining the discussion. I find it exciting when writers are willing to invest in their prose so completely that it becomes almost a character.
I thought Kevin Powelrs'The Yellow Birds was another example of this. (Though, for full disclosure- Powers is not a writer of color)

Stupid phone Thayil!

Titilayo wrote: "William wrote: "An aside: For those who may have read, Buchi Emecheta's "The Joys of Motherhood", couldn't this book be an almost seamless continuation of that story? ..."

I disagree; not a contin..."

I think that both you and Beverly have missed my point. At the end of "The Joys.." [spoiler alert for those intending to read it] The mother begs her oldest son to remain in Lagos and assume the head of household responsibilities. The eldest son refuses and instead flies to America to attend university just as Kweku has done at the beginning of this one. Also the mother dies alone while the son is off at school unaware of her impending demise...just as Kweku is at the begiining of this book. Kweku loses a younger sibling. The oldest son in Joy loses 2. Kweku sires twins named Taiwo and Kehinde. Nnu Ego the mother in Joy has twins named Taiwo and Kehinde.
I'm sorry, but I stand by my original assertion that it only takes a very small leap of the imagination to think of "Ghana... as a continuation of "Joy...
Change the name of the eldest son in Joy, Oshia, to Kweku and you have the story of his life after University in America.
I'm not at all trying to imply that the books are written in the same style or narrative versus dense, just that there are a great many similarities and plot points.

William wrote: I'm sorry, but I stand by my original assertion that it only takes a very small leap of the imagination to think of "Ghana... as a continuation of "Joy...."

Methinks the similarities are greater in Baba Segi. There is not really much imaginative about the Joys of Motherhood. It is a good story about a journey from naïve young woman’s development into adulthood. A great compliment to the growing pains felt in The Women of Brewster’s Place, Sula, and The Color Purple. It just seems like leaps and bounds of massive space instead of small leaps of imagination. Ghana Must Go is about a family. The Secret lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is about a family. The fathers in Ghana and Baba Segi cast a shadow over the wives and children. These shadows hide some really dark secrets! There is a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication..."plot points and similarities"... In Joys there is the usual angst of colonization and modernity. The storyline is very plain. Not much there there.

All Yoruba twins are Taiwo and Kehinde even if they are given different legal names; the entire community still refers to them as Taiwo and Kehinde because it’s normative to the culture. Ibeji (boy-girl twins) are considered extra special children based on traditional beliefs. Hence the reason for the statue…

The family in the Joys of Motherhood is not Yoruba. They have different cultural nuisances specific to their ethnic history and religion. [Not really sure why the twins were named Taiwo and Kehinde. Its been a while since i read it but i think they were Igbo. Its not a big deal; buts it is relevant]. The family in Ghana Must Go is Yoruba and Ga. Their individual and collective identities are peculiar because home has no geographic boundary for them. They are the African Diaspora: American, British, Ga, Yoruba, Ghanaian, and Nigerian.

I realize that my opinion is 12 million times 300,000 zillion biased. My love affair with feminist thought literature is completely coloring my judgment. All those courses I took in African Diaspora and Post-Colonial Anglophone West African Lit have ruined me for life. It is okay. I embrace that. If you would have said that Ghana Must Go is sort of like the 4th generation of the family from Things Fall Apart we would be in one accord; but as it stands we can just agree to disagree.

I see how you formed your opinion; and I can appreciate that. Even though I don’t agree with it, it inspired me to reevaluate how I felt about the all the stories I just mentioned. It was great food for thought. Thanks :-)

Titilayo wrote: "William wrote: I'm sorry, but I stand by my original assertion that it only takes a very small leap of the imagination to think of "Ghana... as a continuation of "Joy...."

Methinks the similaritie..."

this is a tangent I never imagined..One could write an entire other book on the differences between these two. I'm talking themes, the theme of a first sons responsibilities to family versus self, present in both books, while your point seems to be that the specifics of tribal and national cultural differences invalidate the continuing story of many in the African diaspora. The Joy book ends there and Ghana book begins there and then goes in a completely different direction. To a completely different story than Joy but that does not negate my point! It doesn't matter if the people are Igbo, Yuruba or Irish..the theme is the same.

OK not another word about Joy from me..lets move on to these very dysfunctional siblings..remind anyone (and I think it was mentioned earlier) of the "Twelve tribes...). Ha!
Could one fathers disappearance and melt down cause so much grief?

Could one fathers disappearance and melt down cause so much grief?

no, which is why we need to talk about fela.

I really love the pacing of this story. What is revealed and at what points.

I am kind of lost here. I read up to page 46 about the slippers. Then the next section was back and forth about relationships. I couldnt follow it. I wanted to say just spit it out. I cant get what you are saying.

you've got to trust in the power of the prose, rebecca. try to keep reading. it makes sense after a bit. it makes TOTAL sense.

I feel you, Rebecca. I'm 200 pages in, and I'm still having trouble just keeping track of everyone's ages! There have been some major emotional and heartbreaking discoveries, but I find the plot lines, the details, very hard to follow. The revelations have a kind of flow to them, perhaps a tide, but they feel random and disconnected, which may be why you are having trouble. If so, then don't count on it changing, you may want to just start enjoying each scene for what it is by itself, and hopefully the major arcs will come together on their own.

This is always a fine line for me in books, enjoying the discovery versus getting frustrated with hidden information. A lot of major plot points are being hidden from us during the telling of this story; because of this, it is hard to know what is important. I am dying to know how Fola got out of Nigeria, for example, but this may never be revealed. It may not be considered important to the story. But the story continues to be beautiful - Fola's connections to her family via "quadrants" in her physical body have been a powerful image for me - and so I am enjoying it, despite the frustration.

Another thought on Part One, since I think we are about to move on to Part Two: I found it sad that Kweku had to deal with his dramatic experience of racism (being scapegoated/fired from his career/position) all on his own. It seems that allies/family would be an important part of keeping sane during such an experience, but he didn't have that, just kept it bottled between him and his (white) lawyer. What a burden. I realize this partly had to do with Kweku's unique position in this family as Provider, but as I finish Part Two, I am more convinced that this is not an exception; I haven't seen that this family has a language for supporting each other through these types of experiences. Is that how other people see it? Of course, this family doesn't have a language for supporting each other much at all, that is true, but that notwithstanding, do people think this is a part of the culture(s), or something unique to this family, that they might be focused on being successful in America, yet they would not openly discuss obstacles related to racism/xenophobia and support each other, instead leaving each to fend for themselves?

Page 202 spoiler: (view spoiler)[looks like her Nigeria escape was important to the story! < smile > (hide spoiler)]

Yes, the pacing of this book is a bit frustrating. I am wondering why these folks are acting as they are for long stretches, wanting to like them or at the least feel empathy for their troubles but the reasons for their unhappiness come very slowly. While small hints are dropped throughout and tensions build, the actual WHY comes slowly indeed. So as Michael said it might be more rewarding to take each scene on its own. My problem with that is that the scenes of these privileged children acting pitifully were not all that enjoyable.

Hello! I read the book twice; the first time I read it, I enjoyed the puzzle of figuring out what had happened, why each individual acted the way they did, their motives, and what their individual and collective truths were. They all misunderstood one another so much! But isn't that how families are?? The second time, I knew what the story was, so I could be much more perceptive to the details and understand and notice behavior more carefully. The second time, I also read to focus on the poetry of the prose itself, and I was particularly drawn to her use of alliteration at times, and her beautiful, lyrical descriptions, and I thought how poetry is the language of the heart, and how one of the themes in this book was these individuals' love for one another, and how it both damaged and sustained them over time...

" you may want to just start enjoying each scene for what it is by itself, and hopefully the major arcs will come together on their own".

Much better when I picked up the book today Michael and William I think I was looking for too much in every line. Just reading is helping and letting the story unfold is better. Thank You.

I have one question for you.

The first section GONE is full of things that happened in the past (Kweku's dying thoughts about his family) (view spoiler)[ or to be more specific life up until Kweku is fired in disgrace from the hospital, perpetrates the fraud that he is still employed for over a year, bankrupts and then abandons his family with out explanation (hide spoiler)].

Now we embark upon the middle of the story: GOING (things that are happening in the 'present' when the family learns of his death:

What do/did you think is 'GOING' to happen?

Rebecca wrote: "Just reading is helping and letting the story unfold is better. Thank You. "

Glad that helped!

There is so much more going on in this section, it is hard to decide what to talk about. Skipping the details for the moment, I did have two very general thoughts when reading this section:

First, as each of the children is contacted, the news traveling like a burning fuse, it reminded me a bit of the beginning section of Stephen King's It, for those who have read it. I realize he is not an author of color, but perhaps the correlation with a horror novel is appropriate, it certainly carried a sense of dread for me. Titilayo, you ask what I think is GOING to happen, and I remember thinking that when this family gets together, the fuse will be exhausted, and an explosion will result, with plenty of emotional carnage. Section three spoiler: (view spoiler)[in reality, there was less screaming and confrontation than I anticipated. I forgot how ingrained it is to avoid any confrontation at all. (hide spoiler)]

Second, I was really captivated by the themes of Kweku and Fola's childhoods. How the poverty of Kweku's origin was so extreme that the details are not worth remembering, something he certainly can't be bothered to have feelings about. And how the abrupt death of Fola's childhood, from fairy tale to statistic, motivated her to live free from any identity, not to attach herself to any particular situation. The backgrounds created very strong, real characters for me, but not only that, the way Ms. Selasi described their gestation was palpable. I thought she was brilliant at communicating the essence of those situations, the things that an average observer would miss.

And now some random thoughts: the dread of waiting for Fola to figure out what her body knows, that Kweku has died, the "koo-ku" call of the birds, the final "No, Kweku-no"; strangers are captivated by Taiwo's (even Kehinde's) beauty, but why are parents pulled into this fetish instead of finding all of their children beautiful?; Sadie the outsider, the father's betrayal is only a story told by the rest of her family; Olu and Ling wanting something better than "family", how sad that for them the idea of family is something to fight against; I'm struck by how little the family knows each other, how little they talk, how they all seem to envy each other and feel disappointment at aspects of themselves.

i want to make only a couple of points. the distinctive dysfunctionality of this family strikes me as just this, its own dysfunctionality. there is nothing that the author marks as cultural in the way in which they don't support each other (which is true and startling) and of course we all know of families of all stripes that don't support each other and collapse in pain and lack of connection. this is not to say that the emigration/uprooting part plays no part. it's obviously central. but people can talk to each other and love each other through that, too. these people don't manage.

the other point is a point bill makes, about the pain of privileged children, or people in particular. this is something that comes up not infrequently on GR and also when i teach. it always shocks me. privileged people manage to suffer just as much as non privileged people. why, bill, did you think of money and comfort as the solution to the problem of human pain? issues of connection, and love, and lovelessness, in fact, are exactly the same whether you are privileged or not.

Titilayo wrote: "Hello friends! Its the weekend and its raining a perfect time to dive into a dense book. I was sitting here wondering did any of you contemplate the title of this book GHANA MUST GO.

What did you ..."

Thank you so much for the links!

I guess I don't know who story is more heartbreaking. I had thought Kewku's originally but now that I am starting Going. I think Fola's narrative is quite moving as well. I did enjoy the lyrical section of Gone but was really happy to get more of the story in Going. Good point you mentioned earlier Michael about things we want to know but may never. Speaking of, Is it revealed why Olu is the "bigger person"? I am curious to see if the twins live up to their descriptions of the one being born first and second. The description makes me think it will be important.

Work has me pinned down this month. No time to read much less contribute to the discussion. Playing catch up. I'll post comments/review when I'm able to.

Jedah, I think this one is worth making time for later. Though, I think others didn't always share my enthusiasm.

Jo, Jo, Jo..so you teach your students compassion for the problems of the rich and privileged? Ahh, in Miami this is probably a requirement but not so around here. Sorry if I'm not sufficiently empathetic towards Olu whose poor heart is broken because he finds out his father resides with another woman and boards immediately on the first first class flight home..change fees be damned! Or poor Twaino the other worldly beauty so stupid she falls for the oldest university trope in the book..the lecherous predatory married professor that even the poorest and densest rube wouldn't go for. (The twins do earn some sympathy points when there Uncles treatment of them is revealed in the final pages of the book.)
These kids and families problems seem to me mostly self inflicted. That they have immeasurable opportunities and education and continue to whine and be defeated by them annoys. I'll save my compassion for folks who overcome destitution, undernourishment, malevolent racism, and nonexistent healthcare first.

The one percent spend their lives trying to amass the type of fortune that they think will insulate themselves from just those "issues of connection, and love, and lovelessness", you speak of, while the rest of us have no choice but to face them head on. I don't think that money is the solution to human pain but from the mad scramble of most to acquire it and the rich's refusal to relinquish it; to say it has no effect is spurious. The Sai clans actions in the face of their adversity do not endear them to me.

Jo, I think it's a fascinating question. I wonder if pain is really something that can be qualified, and if it can be quantified after a certain threshold. To be unloved to be betrayed to be damaged probably isn't something that wealth can insulate you from. But then to be wealthy removes several sources of pain. How do your students usually respond?
(Tangentially, I read Anna Karenina at 18 and immediately resolved never to read the classics again. A huge part of my problem with the book was here were people who lived in luxury [while my family would have been those people picking potatoes, you understand] going out of their way to find new ways to make themselves miserable. I rolled my eyes and decided that if I wanted a soap opera I'd go ahead and watch All My Children. I promptly stopped reading anything written before 1950. But then, I was 18 at the time.)

William wrote: "The Sai clans actions in the face of their adversity do not endear them to me. "

What I feel for those children is compassion for their lack of parenting. Fola hardly had any parenting herself before she was tossed out into the world. Then when she is abandoned by Kweku, she does the same to her own children.

i don't find the sai family to be part of the 1% at all. they are middle class. in fact, after kweku's departure, they struggle quite a bit. in other words, bill, if i may, they are of just about the same class you and i are, and i, for one, take my own pain quite seriously. i don't think it's whiney pain i'm not entitled to because i have health insurance, food to put on the table, and other such awesome perks.

i try to teach my students compassion. one of the features of compassion is that it doesn't look anyone in the face, doesn't check what they drive, where they live, what they have in their bank account.

the children in this family are traumatized by their parents' behavior. i am not sure why olu felt the need to leave his dad within hours of his arrival -- it was a bit strange to me. but his father was a vastly absent father and olu had gone through the intense disappointment of his father's forgetting his (olu's) graduation from medical school, overcome it, and brought himself to ghana to be with him. maybe he found the poor welcome hurtful. maybe it reminded him of his father's terrible abandonment of his mother, himself, and his siblings.

deborah: wealth does remove certain kinds of pain, but the human condition is plenty capable of creating great suffering even in the presence of wealth. and by the way, i wouldn't call these people wealthy. regardless. it seems to me a sign of true humanity to acknowledge and respect pain whatever its cause, whoever the person who suffers. it rains on the rich and on the poor.

this is not to say that i do not acknowledge, and try to lessen, probably a lot less than i should, the pain of those who have much less money than i. we all must.

as for students, some get it, some don't, like the rest of humanity. it always strikes me that, when they don't get it, it's because they are contemptuous of their own pain. and this seems very sad to me.

One of the things I said in a previous post about a frustration with this book was its leisurely pace at getting to the "why". This is important to me because in terms of the compassion you ask me to extend, imagine if you will one person crying, threatening suicide, etc. and the other smiling contentedly. Without knowing that the first is a multimillionaire crying because his tax bill has risen and the other smiling because he ate his first meal in a week, I would be likely to extend my compassion, a helping hand etc. to the first. I would be wrong.
The same goes for the Sai kids..given their cushy circumstances that I do know..against any further traumas (the why) that I don't..its hard to empathize.

Without knowing that the first is a multimillionaire crying because his tax bill has risen and the other smiling because he ate his first meal in a week, I would be likely to extend my compassion, a helping hand etc. to the first. I would be wrong.

no you wouldn't.

the 1% are the multimillion/billionaires, the bill gates, the george soros, the warren buffetts. this is a guy on a generous stipend, i assume, but it's also true that he comes from poverty so probably doesn't have a lot of wealth put away, plus, well, that generous stipend doesn't exist.

Deborah wrote: "Jedah, I think this one is worth making time for later. Though, I think others didn't always share my enthusiasm."

Jedah wrote: "Work has me pinned down this month. No time to read much less contribute to the discussion. Playing catch up. I'll post comments/review when I'm able to."

Making steady progress due in large part to a rain filled weekend. I'm curious, does anyone else hear a singsong character to her prose? I hear singsong in every paragraph I read.

i find it intensely poetic. maybe you mean something more?

jo wrote: "i find it intensely poetic. maybe you mean something more?"
That's precisely what I meant, poetic, a bit of rhyming in the way sentences are strung together. I wanted to be certain I wasn't the only one hearing it.

William wrote: "One of the things I said in a previous post about a frustration with this book was its leisurely pace at getting to the "why". This is important to me because in terms of the compassion you ask me ..."

I have formed the opinion that empathy doesn't come entirely from feeling for a character, from feeling the same way he/she is feeling. Empathy sometimes comes by way of simple recognition that their circumstance is relatable, that what they have experienced as presented on the page could exist. Selasi offers in the form of the siblings several examples taken straight from pop culture. She draws direct comparison between Kehinde and Basquiat, the tortured artist teetering on self annihilation. Taiwo assumes the role of any number of celebutants caught misbehaving in a very public way. Sadie has body image issues, issues of fitting in, of feeling she belongs. Olu is the consummate overachiever, like his father. Only his driving for success places intentional distance between him and his family. In the end, he doesn't want to see Ling, the woman he loves, become family. It's a bit unfortunate that we don't get to see any of their stories through to the end, see how things turn out (the why as you've stated). Selasi at least provides some insight into the origin of their respective traumas. Then I don't believe this is entirely their story to tell, the Sai siblings collateral collected as a result of their father's failings, of the choices he made, how those choices shortchanged the whole lot of them.

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday....I was sitting here thinking what would be a good way to spark off conversation about Part III Go. We have met the father who died/abandoned the family, they have been informed and traveled to Ghana for his funeral; and now they must confront what his death/presence meant to the Sai family.

Everyone seems to confront Kweku's death by exploring their own demons. It makes sense because he was the spring board by his actions/absence for the pink elephant in the room that has plagued them the entire tale. The ibeji share a very powerful moment in two separate places. Olu and Ling have a heart felt conversation. Sadie re-examines her body image issues. Fola has a visitor at home. Ghana Must Go bags reappear.Everything is neatly tied up. The final nail is put in the coffin and the the story ends.

In all that transpires in GO, some scenes were very poignant. To me the defining moment when Sadie realizes she looks like her father's relatives and find her heartbeat in the rhythm of the drums was truly remarkable! What scene left a deep imprint on you?

I thought the contrast of Sadie's experience in the village with Kehinde's was striking. I love when writers will tell a character's story and at the same time make so much clear about another character's story. (Sorry, that was an awful sentence.) You start to see why Kweku had to leave his home.

Also, earlier in our conversation people were very critical of Fola as a parent. I don't know that I think that's fair. Things went badly for her children, but she didn't set out to engineer that. I think she was less negligent than say, someone who leaves their kid in the car while shopping. Maybe it's telling but I've seen dysfunction and on a 1-10 bad parent scale I don't think she'd hit a five.

Deborah wrote: "You start to see why Kweku had to leave his home."

why?

the last part in my opinion is the weakest. i didn't like that all those loose thread got tied up. it seemed agains the grain, the mystery, the poetry of the book. i hated the narrative of the twins' ordeal. i really felt like i didn't. want. to. read. that. what is the point of giving us the graphic details? why do women writers do that? why don't they know better? it's arousing in all the wrong ways. i don't want sexual violence to arouse me. i don't want sexual violence done to children to arouse me. what is the point of the explicit narrative? if there is a point, telasi -- in my opinion -- doesn't bring it to bear.

and then everyone loves everyone again, and they find each other again, and sadie finds her body. nah, man.

look, i loved this book. i really did. but this last part was just okay, is all.

as for fela's parenting, she's just not there. maybe the fact that, according to deborah, she doesn't hit a five, is a sad testimony to a lot of shitty parenting we've all seen.

jo wrote: "Deborah wrote: "You start to see why Kweku had to leave his home."

why?"

I thought the parallels that the coffin maker draws between Kehinde and Kweku points up the ways Kweku must have felt out of place in the village. Where if he like Kehinde was drawn to art where, when he was drawn to study, those leanings were met with derision.

oh, i see. when you said home i thought you meant his home with fela and the kids. yes, that is a wonderful part of the book, when we get to realize that kweku was an artist too.

I am sorry to be commenting so late on this novel - this has been a bumpy 2 months for me and we are still not even close to being able to return to our crushed house. But I read this book over a month ago and really loved it. My slight objection was made by jo earlier - that the end tied up everything a bit too neatly - but after having read The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, I'll admit to being more tolerant than usual of a more promising ending. I certainly didn't see this family as overly privileged. They seemed like a lot of immigrant families to me - struggling for what they achieved, intelligent, determined, and very vulnerable. I felt more sympathy for Kweku than most of the group. An interesting aspect of this family was how little support they had holding them up. They were very alone in their struggles to build a successful life, depending on their common vision of what they thought a successful life would look like, but, as someone mentioned earlier, without the communication skills to really operate as a family. Everyone had a particular role to play, and when Kweku unfairly lost his job, he was completely lost. He continued to play his role to his family until he was unmasked in front of his child. At that point, he was in free fall and did what his father did before him - he left. The more I thought about it, the better the title, which seemed odd to me at first, seemed to fit the book. The only behavior model that anyone has in this book is leaving.

Fola, when confronted with Kweku's desertion, can't do any better either. Her role crumbles when his does and she can't alter her viewpoint enough to realize that she can manage her family during this crisis, so she does the worst possible thing - she also leaves and she sends 2 of the children to her despicable excuse for a brother. This family was a high-wire circus act, appearing strong and functional high in the air until the wire broke and they all came tumbling down.

I sympathize with jo's aversion to hearing the terrible details of the abuse the children suffered at the hands of the uncle, but I think that it was important in order to understand just how broken the trust was between the twins and their parents and between the twins themselves, in spite of the love they had for each other. Love was just not enough to hold this family together.

As a complete aside, I was surprised to see that the children in this family attended Milton Academy. My sister taught kindergarten there for many years and my nieces and nephew attended the school at what must have been roughly the same time as the author. I have resisted asking my family about her, because I didn't want their opinions of her to affect my opinion of this book. Did anyone else notice that this family associated with almost every ethnic group except African Americans? I did find the details of their lives in New England as black people attending an elite private school to be right on point. I was particularly struck by Sadie's experiences in ballet - very familiar. This family was certainly not the 1% - they hustled for everything they had - but they lived and worked and went to school among the 1% and that carries its own difficulties. I found their losses to be heartbreaking. I agree with everyone about how beautifully written this book is and I really loved it.

Sorry I dropped out for a week there, my internet service went out and it has been making it hard to keep up with everything.

William: I'm glad you brought up the issue of privilege, it should not be overlooked, and certainly we need to bring a critical eye to how the characters are often confusing their priorities, and fail to appreciate what they have. However, I don't agree that this makes the themes irrelevant, at least to me. I connected with the many aspects of their self-defeating behavior, for example, and this is something that can happen to rich and poor alike, and is a shame of lost human potential regardless of who it affects.

Shari: I liked your observation about their love sustaining them but also damaging them.

jo: I appreciated you noting that the author does not label their lack of communication cultural, that it is a quality of this specific family dynamics. I think I went too quickly to try to make an assessment through stereotype/generalization. I know the themes of emigration/departure/loss are tied up in everything, but you are right it is just one aspect, and every family deals with it differently.

Also, I totally agree with you on the twins' narrative. It was too explicit. Especially when so much of the book before that was just suggestive, for example the scenes with Taiwo and the Dean. Ironically, I just read another book with almost the exact same scenario (I know, not a good week for me), but the (female) author handled it infinitely better: setting up the situation, then looking away. I can't begin to say how much better that was. I had to take a star off from this book for that scene alone. In addition, I felt very uncomfortable with the explicitness of the Olu/Ling scene almost immediately following that in the book. I know they had no knowledge of the Taiwo/Kehinde ordeal, but the reader is still recovering at that point and to put that scene right after it was too confusing, something that was supposed to be a cathartic moment in Olu/Ling's relationship just made me nauseous. It was unfortunate.

Finally, I differ a bit with many folks' assessment of Fola as not being there. It goes back to Kehinde's drawing of Fola and Kweku, and how she was portrayed as being "bigger than" Kweku. (answering Rebecca's question here, though Kweku, not Olu). In my opinion this is proven when Kweku leaves, and Fola is the bigger person because she does not leave, she keeps limping along against some pretty bad odds. Wilhelmina brilliantly noted that sending the twins away was leaving in their eyes, but she tries to correct her mistake in two ways - one, when she orchestrates their reentry to Milton when they are returned, broken, to her home, and later when Taiwo tells her the whole story and she holds her. In both of those instances her ability as a mother is called into question, she basically learns she failed, but unlike Kweku, she does not leave in shame, she perseveres and continues to try to be there for them even if they hate her. Also, her weekends with Sadie speak to her ability to connect with her family, even though she avoids direct communication. She is dysfunctional in many ways, but I couldn't help but admire her for the many things she did do to hold the family together.

glad you made it, mina. wonderful, wonderful review. loved every word. i'd like to add that the twins' abuse at the hand of their uncle explain the sexual attraction between them ("I am your sister!"), this pull they feel and also the need they have to stay apart (huge incest anxiety).

i am happy, michael, that i don't remember what happens between olu and ling just after the recounting of the twins' abuse scene. ugh.

the rapport between fela and sadie is anything but okay. fela clearly leans on sadie in a way that keeps sadie young, prevents her from blossoming. when sadie points it out to her, fela... leaves. without telling anyone. just like that. and no one talks to her -- or she to them -- for ages. awful. as mina says, "The only behavior model that anyone has in this book is leaving."

michael, i'd like to know what book you are alluding to, if you can tell us.

i am infinitely sorry that no one except fela sees kweku's house, a house with a hole in the middle, an architectonic masterpiece, bare and clean and intolerably white (remember that olu leaves the same day as he arrives to ghana also because he finds kweku's temporary quarters so shabby; houses matter a lot in this book, starting from the house kweku's father built).

Here are some more random, rambling thoughts as we recap this novel...

Kueku: I felt his pain and humiliation. Here was a man who had achieved the dream. He was a successful enough scholar to get a scholarship in a Western country. He was diligent: he believed that hard work can lift you from property, and so he applied himself with a vengeance. Poverty is no stranger to him, and he knows how to cope, but he does not want to ever live that way again. (Interesting, though that he does when he returns to Ghana, which I see as a type of penance). His education and his profession are the ticket out. Having done all of the right things and believing in meritocracy, he is absolutely crushed, devastated, decimated when he is unrightfully dismissed from his job. His world view is destroyed. He fights this dismissal with everything-literally-he has. And then, as Wilhelmina says, he is "unmasked" in front of his child. His role-which means and is everything- as a doctor, as a father, as a man, as an immigrant success story- is blown to smithereens. I can't imagine. He copes the way he knows, as an immigrant who has fled devastation: he goes/leaves. He tries to come back later, when he has recovered some what, but his family is already gone.

Fola: I am inferring that her father was murder victim as a Hausa during the lead up to the Biafran war. Again, being educated and upper class did not protect Fola or her father. Wealth and education can only do so much, and the myth is that wealth will always protect you. So, Fola goes to the States. Fola is seen by some as a bad parent, but having spent some time in west Africa, having friends there and a daughter who live/lived there, I can attest that it is typical that children are sent away for various reasons: for economic's sake because a family can't support all of them, to learn a trade, to be educated, to have have more options, to help a family member. Virtually all of my west African friends have other people's children living with them. This is expected. It is also expected that if you have more, you share it: you hire people, you get/give people jobs, you sponsor students, you take in children. So, in this way, I think Fola sending her children to her brother is not surprising. It may make her a bad mother inWestern eyes, but in West African eyes it would be expected. What happens to the twins is horrible, but also not unexpected. Sexual violence is also rife, and I have stories that would curl your toes. It wasn't pleasant to read, nor is it pleasant when it happens. I think it is important to hear those stories, so we can understand. Change can't happen unless behaviors are exposed. Not everything that is accepted behavior-"this is the way it is" -is acceptable behavior.

I was moved that Fola returned to Ghana, which was Kweku's home: to me it spoke of how deep her love for him remained. I wasnt surprised that she returned to West Africa, and left the States. I was amused that when she returned she was brought her American ways, which caused her to still be an outsider: both the blessing and the curse of an immigrant. I felt sad that that Kweku and Fola were never able to reconnect...I thought the new wife/old wife or first wife/second wife relationship seemed true, also Kweku's purpose in taking a second, younger wife. Also liked the connection with the Ghana Must Go bags, which Ghanaians fleeing Nigeria traveled back home to Ghana with: then we find Fola, a Nigerian, finding refuge in Ghana. Ironic.

Sadie: My daughter felt that Sadie finding herself in African dance was too trite. I see her point, but I disagree somewhat. I also noted how Sadie found her face and her body in those of her aunts and cousins. Having had that experience myself when traveling to the place where my ancestors immigrated from, I felt the same wonder. "Aha! This is what we look like! Oh...." Blanks get filled in: this is why we do this, this is why we say that, this is how that happened...Maybe the dancing and the drums seemed a bit trite, but that would have happened at an important occasion such as a funeral, and well, dancing to drums can be very liberating. All tribal cultures do it, and drums speak to your soul.

That's all i have for now. I'm glad I joined this book group; I really don't know anyone else who reads the same type of books that I do, and it has been a pleasure to be able to discuss this book with you. Thank you for your thoughts.

thank you so much, deborah, for adding more first-person perspective to this book.

I am surprised no one mentioned Olu and Dr Wei's conversation. My jaw dropped. I had a hard time believing her not mentioning him never came up in all that time.

Thank you Jo. I really just babble reactions as I have them.

Rebecca, I am baffled by how often I come in contact with casual racism. What I find really inexplicable, is that most racists will begin with. "I'm not a racist but, (insert some horribly offensive comment here)"

can someone refresh my memory?

Ling's father tells Olu he is against their marriage because he's Nigerian and they don't have a sufficient, in Wei's opinion, a sufficient respect for familial obligation.

oh, right. THAT dr. wei. but then that's hardly casual racism, is it. that's true hardcore racism that the racist person has formalized into a serious theory of a whole people (or several peoples).

jo wrote: "michael, i'd like to know what book you are alluding to, if you can tell us. "

It is technically a spoiler for the book, so it's in here: (view spoiler)[Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor. It is a collection of original fairy tales, and one of the three has the scene in it. (hide spoiler)]

I also thought the house themes were interesting. Not only did Kweku's house have a hole in the middle of it, the meddling carpenter forced him to have a garden instead of a desert in the middle, which he only saw "blossoming" upon his death.

"hardcore racism" - well said! Although perhaps Deborah meant the kind of hardcore racism that blindsides the listener in a casual conversation, so the "casual" referring to the context instead of the racism.