Hardback: 332 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Canongate 2023
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentences: Caro was angry. After one of her apprentices read the notice of meeting out loud to her, she there it across the room into a dustbin.
Review Quote: "Adebayo is carving a real name for herself as a chronicler of moving Nigeria-set stories with sociopolitical subtexts and a Dickensian flavour . . . Profound" ― Observer
My Opinion:
This is a novel that brings to the attention of the reader the class tensions, poverty and political corruption that are all rife in Nigeria.
Two families are the centre of the story, firstly we meet sixteen year old Eniola whose working class family life style was fine, until his father lost his job though redundancy. Unable to find other work the family has lost everything including their car and home. Eniola is even getting beaten at school because his parents have not paid his fees.
The second protagonist is Wuraola, a young woman in her late twenties, from a wealthy family. She is a doctor and currently doing a residency in a local public hospital that brings its problems for her. Wuraola is feeling pressured to marry before she is thirty and finds herself engaged to a man she is unsure about.
These two are leading very different lives but they become entangled because of tragedy and violence.
My one gripe was the lack of glossary as being unfamiliar with some of the words I would have liked to have easily looked them up, rather than refer to external sources. I would recommend A Spell of Good Things to anyone that wants to learn about life in modern day Nigeria.
Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:
After a government edict cut his father's job, Eniola's family has been struggling to survive. His secondary school teachers beat him because of his unpaid fees, and his parents are behind on the rent and cannot pay for his apprenticeship at a tailoring shop. Nevertheless, he strives to make himself useful, folding wrappers and trying to forget about how he's taunted by schoolmates.
Wuraola, the daughter of the tailoring shop's most valued customer, is an exhausted young doctor who can barely catch any sleep as she works long hours in a public hospital. After her boyfriend proposes, their relationship accelerates towards marriage even as his darker side is exposed, risking her family's spell of good things.
Meanwhile, Eniola becomes caught in a tangle of decisions that will bring him into collision with political forces in the city, and harm his family and Wuraola's in the process. Following the lives of Eniola, Wuraola and their relatives, the novel traces the entwined fates of two families in a Nigerian city, one with all the fortune in the world and one that cannot catch a break.
Author Profile:
Courtesy of Goodreads
Ayobami Adebayo was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, and one was highly commended in the 2009 Commonwealth short story competition. She holds BA and MA degrees in Literature in English from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife. She also has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia where she was awarded an international bursary for Creative Writing. Ayobami has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Ledig House, Hedgebrook, Threads, Ebedi Hills and Ox-Bow.
STAY WITH ME- UK (Canongate, March 2017), Nigeria (Ouida Books, April 2017), US (Knopf, August 2017), KENYA (Kwani?, August 2017) was her debut novel.
Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:
Amazon Author Page Author Official Website. Goodreads Profile Page
