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. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to hear. Unraveling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me is a story of fragility of married love, the undoing of a family, the power of grief and all the consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves, and those we love, from heartbreak.
MY REVIEW
This well written page-turning story is set in Nigera.
Yejide had become Akin’s first wife, she tried four years trying to have a baby, without her getting pregnant.
I liked the fact that Yejide, was a hairdresser as years ago I went on a hairdressing course. I thought it was good of Yejide’s husband Akin to give her a generous personal allowance.
In Yejide’s hair salon she had small wooded combs, and hooded hairdryers, that took me back to hairdressing course putting clients under the hooded hair dryer. Yejide’s dream was to open up more salons, making a budget of all the new items she would need.
In Nigeria a husband can to marry as many wife’s as he wishes. But under Shari Law, he can marry only four wife’s. With this Yejide’s husband Akin has a second wife Funmi,. In Yejide’s salon an argument occurs, between her and Funmi.
This may be quite moving in parts with Yejide having to put up with her husband having another wife, but it’s a beautiful well written must read novel.
Ayobami Adebayo is author of STAY WITH ME and A SPELL OF GOOD THINGS. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Literature in English from Obafemi Awolowo University, I’ve, Nigeria, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where she was awarded an International bursary for Creative Writing. In 2022 her play PROVENANCE was produced by the university of East Anglia and mutiny and exhibited as a muti-screen immersive installation. Ayobami has written for the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, The Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, Ellie and others. She has received Stay With Me won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and Prix, Les Afriques, and was shortlisted for the Woman’s Prize and the Welcome Book Prize.http://www.ayobamiadebayo.com/ Twitter ayobamiadebayo
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