Greetings! 👋🏽
I hope you are doing well, and taking good care of yourself.
Welcome to another edition of The Reader’s Perspective newsletter.
The Visit is the first book in the Black Stars collection. This collection of 6 books features short stories by Black authors. The whole book (Kindle version) is 20 pages long so it can be a nice evening read, and like everything else the author has written, it’s riveting and thought-provoking.
In this speculative short story, CNA disagrees with James Brown and paints a world ruled by the matriarchy. The book lightly explores the expectations the society places on girls and women, but on the flip side—on boys and men. Here, men are subject to the whims of women and constantly under their watchful eyes.
It’s a man’s world - James Brown
The scene opens with Obinna watching the news, in preparation for his friend, Eze’s visit. He does not care much for foreign news, but he wants to impress his friend.
Obinna is a conscientious stay-at-home husband and father, married to a powerful business woman, Amara. Eze, on the other hand, is single and non-conformist. Both men had grown up and attended university together. They were as close as brothers but only loosely kept in touch since Eze moved to America.
We first see the author’s twist of life as we know it with the reversal of roles in Eze’s parents, and with Eze’s father chiding him for licking cashew juice from between his fingers.
“Don’t lick your fingers like a bush boy. How will you find a wife with this kind of behaviour?”
Eze vowed not to get married. In a world where marriage is the ultimate prize for a man, how could this be? Obinna thought his friend’s stance was “sacrilegious” but he thought about it time and again.
When the two friends meet again, it’s like the old times. As they talk, Eze bemoans his experience with women who were not ready for commitment. He also mentions his real reason for visiting home and complains about modern medicine ignoring the health problems that affect only men.
Obinna talks about his wife not allowing him to work and when Eze asks why he stopped writing poetry, he said he lost interest. He knows his friends knows it’s a lie so he explains further, telling him what truly happened and his wife’s role in it.
The following day, Eze suggests they do something and after a lot of convincing, they go to a club. They have a somewhat heated conversation when they get back and that forces Eze to contemplate his life. His friend had upset his balance and he wanted him to leave.
This turn of events makes me think about why people don’t speak up about certain issues in their lives. Sometimes, it takes just one conversation to tip things over the edge; especially when they have been thinking about said thing(s) for some time.
Obinna was dissatisfied with his life and routines and low-key wanted more but he could not bring himself to go against the norms so he settled for what he could get.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Leave a comment, maybe? 😉
If you read this book after reading this review, do come back and share 😊