THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf), 218 pages, $29.95 cloth. Rating: NNNN
I’ve always had a hard time with short stories. If they’re good, if I’ve been drawn into the characters and location, I don’t want to move on to the next one after only 30 pages.
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But Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half Of A Yellow Sun) has solved my problem. The beautiful, sad and inspiring stories in this collection share a theme – the challenges involved in reconciling the cultures of her two home countries. With a strong sense of longing, Adichie sheds light on Nigeria’s violent political landscape and the consequences of escaping it to live in the United States.
Most of the stories feature women trying to survive. Sometimes, as in Imitation, they focus on domestic strife in North America, in this case a woman finally devising a strategy for coping with a womanizing husband. In another sly story, Jumping Monkey Hill, set in South Africa, an author confronts a writing workshop leader’s pathetic sexism.
Though Adichie’s title story’s protagonist is a woman choking on loneliness in the U.S., the most powerful tales are those set in Africa. In The American Embassy, a woman dreads her encounter with the bureaucrat who’ll decide if she can leave Nigeria. A privileged medical student in A Private Experience goes through the terror of a riot alongside a poverty-stricken Muslim woman.
Adichie writes lucidly and deceptively simply and has a genius for dialogue that conveys character. But her major gift is her ability to take her people on a major emotional journey in less than 20 pages. None of her characters is the same by the end of a story.
Readers won’t be the same at the end of the book either.
Adichie reads as part of Luminato’s World Voices event at the Al Green Theatre tonight (Thursday, June 11). See Readings.
Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com
