Title: Stay With Me
Author: Ayòbámi Adébàyò
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Allen and Unwin/Canongate
Published: 29th March, 2017
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Price: $27.99
Synopsis: This Nigerian debut is the heart-breaking tale of what wanting a child can do to a person, a marriage and a family; a powerful and vivid story of what it means to love not wisely but too well.
‘There are things even love can’t do…If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But even when it’s in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn’t mean it’s no longer love…’
Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything – arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, dances with prophets, appeals to God. But when her in-laws insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair. Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 80s Nigeria, Stay With Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all- consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak.
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Yejide and Akinyele’s story begins in 2008, where Yejide is travelling to her old home to attend a funeral of a family member, and the novel begins to flashback to 1980s Nigeria, where the world of the twentieth century that Yejide and Akinyele have grown up in begins to rub shoulders with the traditional world of the Yoruba people in Nigeria. Amidst political unrest, and societal expectations of the Yoruba traditions, Yejide and Akinyele begin to live their lives as a married couple, hoping for children to enter the world and bring them joy.
Yejide’s world however, is turned upside down by the addition of a second wife to the family, and the phantom pregnancy that sets a plan in motion – where everyone is deceived, and Yejide and Akinyele find their relationship crumbling slowly with each tragedy, and with everyone they know, their friends, their family – at least on Akinyele’s side, trying to persuade them things will get better, and putting the onus of keeping a child on Yejide – they struggle to find a way to stay together.
Set against the backdrop of a politically turbulent Nigeria straddling the traditional world with the modern world, Stay With Me is a story about family, about a husband and wife trying to work through obstacles that keep them from building the family they desire. It shows that what they so desperately want – for their children to stay with them, can drive them apart for many years, and it also shows the power of love in all its forms coming together, and the power of forgiveness and understanding in times of crisis where rash decisions can be made. It evokes an image of Africa that shows the beauty but also, the cracks that come into society at ties and how these cracks slowly seep into families and personal lives.
It was an enjoyable read that tugs at the heart strings, and demands to be read all at once but at the same time, savoured, with a lyrical voice lingering on each word, and the songs ringing out long after you have finished.
