Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham is all about power.
The power parents have over children – and what happens if they abdicate that power?
The power girls have over boys – and what happens if boys decide they want more power for themselves?
The power the church has over Nigerians – and what happens if the church tells you that God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called? Is it an encoded message meaning, ‘Be careful around your brethren, they can be injurious’. Most of all, it’s about the power men have over women – particularly poor women – in a society where a powerful man can pay your bills, get you a job, or even marry you, if only you’re willing to pay his price.
The novel follows twin sisters and their younger brothers, with each character narrating various chapters. Their family starts off relatively happy in Lagos in 1996. But after their mother loses her job, their father wagers the family home on a ‘sure bet’. (Ask Walter from Raisin in the Sun how that worked out for him). The loss of their home is the first step in the family’s splintering. The children’s mother and then their father abandon them, leaving them in the care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother.
The best parts of this book were the ones that dealt with exposing the hypocrisy of the New Church – an organization that preaches the prosperity gospel and enshrines male superiority, naturally – and the parts that dealt with women’s experience in a society that routinely disenfranchises them.
Here’s a quote that jumped off the page and hit me in the face: “I was a parentless teenage girl living with my grandmother in the slums of Lagos. Beauty was a gift, but what was I to do with it? It was fortunate to be beautiful and desired. It made people smile at me. I was used to strangers wishing me well. But what is a girl’s beauty, but a man’s promise of reward?” Thank you @bookofcinz for your bookish generosity!
