Bridget Aver Achie’s debut novella, Just Before Sunset, is a not-so-familiar tale of the family. The character of Shima Abudu, an irresponsible husband and father is a familiar character, both in our society and in our literature. The character of Torkwase, a high achieving wife enslaved in her family by a wicked husband is also a familiar one. What is not so familiar though, at least in our literature, is an educated Shima, an automobile engineer who is more interested in being served as “the head of the family” than in heading his family.
The novella is an exposé on marital complications, with Shima Abudu and his wife of twelve years at the centre. Their four children are at the background, bearing the full physical and psychological brunt of having a negligent father and a suffering mother. Shima who is in the habit of not lasting in a job had lost his last job for, as rumoured, slapping his boss. The hot-tempered husband thus retires home to a life of gambling (with his wife’s resources), drinking (on the benevolence of a malevolent friend), watching television and demanding and consuming foods he never provided. The wife, on the other hand, becomes the sacrificial lamb, taking care of all the financial and domestic needs of the family.
Torkwase, a lawyer with Ojo & Partners, seems to have internalized the Igbo saying that the dignity of a woman is her husband; she strips herself or allows her husband to strip her of her dignity, reducing her to a family machine. The opening paragraph of the novella that brings the rawness and brutality of this situation to the fore:
“It was the last day of the month and Torkwase was awakened by the alarm clock at 5.00 a.m. She had gone to bed the previous night at about 11.45 p.m. It was the earliest time she ever went to bed.”
Had Torkwase’s problem been only doing all the house chores even with her workload at the law firm, she might have considered it a cross to be borne without complaints. Had her only problem been sourcing for all the funds needed to keep the family running, she might have never thought of leaving her marriage. But this expert of Marital Causes Act at Ojo & Partners had no such luck. She was not only living with a lazy, irresponsible and insecure husband, she was also living with a wife beater, one “more comfortable when she looked depressed and unhappy.” When Torkwase who had gotten used to being verbally assaulted by her husband almost got killed by him, she resolved to leave the marriage.
The novella is Achie’s attempt at contributing to an ongoing discourse on family, marriage and marital abuse. Reading through the book, one feels the author’s inclination to teach. It is an exploration of how financial hardship and irresponsibility and not only infidelity, can also contribute to marital breakdown. It is clear that the author’s stance on the issue of marriage dissolution she made known through the character of Madam Rose. Madam Rose, Torkwase’s closest friend, advises for a professional marriage counseling course as a solution (since it worked in hers too). By offering this option, Achie moves away from the worrisome trope of having spiritual leaders pray against the demon of divorce in families, or the less worrisome trend of instituting judicial panels made of the spouses’ parents and some elders, which used to be the solutions (apart from divorce and separation) in our written literature, films and society. While providing this better alternative, the author never failed, through Dr. Mary Antsah, the marriage counsellor, to announce that professional counselling is not in itself a fool proof solution. “It is only a guide to help people who are willing to try.”
In discussing marital challenges, the author also highlighted some recent healthcare challenges Nigeria and the world at large has faced: ebola and COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic, in an artistic way, mingles with the marital issues of the Abudu’s. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a nationwide lockdown was announced. Locked down in the house with her husband, Torkwase’s problems with Shima escalated to its acme. The ease of this lockdown allowed the embattled, separated couple the chance of meeting, twice a week, the counsellor, an activity that helped restore their marriage. But this restoration is incomplete just like the effect of easing the lockdown: “Life in the country was gradually returning to normal but still the effects of the lockdown lingered; no one had fully recovered yet.” This use of the turbulence the lockdown brought as a symbolic representation of the troubled marriage of the Abudu’s is the novella’s most effective artistic device. The last paragraph in the 64-page novella attests to the assertion that “no one had fully recovered yet,” at least not Torkwase who does not share satisfactorily in her husband’s happiness in a marriage that seems to have returned to normal.
Achie’s novella leaves much to be desired in the telling: the characterization, the voice, the language, the grammar. Of what relevance to the story is the character of Barr. Kingsley with all the detailed descriptions of him? Barr. Kingsley seems to be only a prop introduced by the author to show the virtuousness of Torkwase. Even at that the character fails since there is already Chief Agumba – another example of the author’s failure in characterization. Chief Agumba remains unknown to the reader until page 47 where he is flung into the narrative to explain how Torkwase got financial help during the COVID-19 lockdown. But he could have been more effectively used; he could have been used to replace Barr. Kingsley, making all those flirtatious advances Torkwase is sure to reject from the beginning.
Authorial intrusion is annoyingly a thing in the novella. On many occasions the author stepped outside the characters to speak directly to the reader. It got worse at the marriage counselling scene. Few examples would suffice: “With this line of discussion, the doctor established the importance of communication and nipping issues in the bud to avoid eventual escalation”; “with this line of questioning, the psychologist addressed the issue of physical assault.” It is no longer clear, at this point, whether this is fiction or a critical analysis of a fictional conversation.
The author’s fondness for the saying, “she bit her lips so hard she could almost taste blood” made it repetitive, and boring. The error of saying “round up” while meaning “round off” became vexatious with its continued repetition in the novella.
Just Before Sunset is a didactic book, nevertheless. It is meant to be a warehouse of lessons; it didn’t fail in that regard. With the character of Madam Rose, for example, the reader sees an experienced illiterate educating a less-experienced marital cause expert (from the legal perspective) on marital issues. What endears the book to this reader though is the thought-provoking ending. Why would Torkwase who had always wanted the marriage to work be the one filled with bitterness at the end? Will the now blossoming marriage survive Torkwase’s bitterness? What made the victim morph into a villain?
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