Purchase a copy for yourself here!
In the late 1980s—amidst a great deal of political turmoil in Nigeria—university students Yejide and Akin fall in love hard and fast. The modern and highly educated couple resolves not to partake in the traditional Nigerian practice of polygamy, where a husband acquires a series of wives who bear him children. But tragedy strikes when years of infertility provoke Akin’s family into selecting a second younger bride to bear children for Akin. Set in Ilesa, in the state of Osun, Nigeria, Stay with Me, the debut novel from Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, centers around this couple whose relationship is destroyed by a culture that prioritizes child-bearing over all else. Yejide is a failure if she cannot produce children, namely sons, for her husband. When Funmi, introduced by Akin’s family, arrives in their home, Yejide remarks, “I expected to hear about a new pastor I could visit; a new mountain where I could go to pray; or an old herbalist in a remote village or town whom I could consult … What I was not expecting was another smiling woman in the room, a yellow woman with a blood-red mouth who grinned like a new bride.”
Yejide is no stranger to familial unrest, she is the daughter of her father’s second wife who died during her birth—she was ostracized by her stepmothers as a motherless child, and her father blamed her for the death of his beloved wife. The destabilization caused by Funmi’s arrival and the years of pressure from family members take a great toll on Yejide, who develops a phantom pregnancy, claiming to be with child despite every doctor’s insistence that she is not. So begins a painful cycle, as Yejide finally finds herself pregnant under complicated circumstances, and is forced to deal with the painful reality of children unwell with sickle cell disease. Yejide and Akin encounter an unimaginable degree of loss and grief in their process of family-making, which are only compounded by a series of revelations surrounding untruths and betrayals that the couple have been living with for many years.
While Stay with Me is set in past decades—the late 80s and early 90s—Adébáyọ̀ asserts that many of the systems oppressing Yejide are still in place. In an interview with NPR, she said, “I wish I could say that a lot has changed. I think that now she might be more willing to consider leaving the marriage much earlier — I mean, there would still be some stigma, is the truth, but it’s not as taboo as it was back then. But honestly, when it comes to the kind of pressure she faces for not having a child, that hasn’t changed very much, unfortunately.” But the social pressures surrounding motherhood are not issues native to only Nigeria. In the western world, there is a culture of shaming those who either choose not to or are not able to have children, and a further stigma surrounding those deemed imperfect mothers by outdated standards. Yejide’s struggles with her own family and with Akin’s speak to a global history of female shame and guilt surrounding the family, but Adébáyọ̀ grounds her novel in Nigerian culture, making connections between the political and personal unrest that enfolds throughout the novel.
Stay with Me is a moving portrayal of grief, loss, and relational politics. As revolutions and counterrevolutions spring up virtually every day in Nigeria, and the public is unable to receive reliable information on the state of their leadership, Yejide and Akin are plagued by a similar conflict of misinformation and disunity. Their marriage descends into a further fractured state as the miscommunications pile up, and like the people of Nigeria, neither of them are hearing the full story. There is anger, injustice, and mutual hurt that provoke a series of retaliations from each side, as the couple pushes up against the oppressive cultural institutions that dictate the terms of their union.
Adébáyọ̀ has crafted a sensitive and spirited novel about a couple trying to survive in a “society where having children validates not just the individual but the marriage itself,” in her own words. (Source) Stay with Me addresses complicated and weighty emotional struggles—the characters struggle with the loss of children, marital betrayal, and the half truths that tear there marriage asunder. It is a novel about the complicated nature of human connection, and Adébáyọ̀ opts for a hopeful and bright outlook despite the heavy subject matter. The novel’s humor and celebration of the human spirit is a testament to resiliency and survival. A subtle but moving debut.