Changes: A Love Story Book

This is my first exposure to Aidoo, who is better known for her drama than for her fiction. "Changes" is a compact and mature look at a woman's inability to find satisfactory companionship and love in modern day Accra, Ghana. The insights into polygamy from both the female and the male perspective were fascinating and the passages showcasing marriage negotiations and traditions were a definite highlight.

The writing itself is fairly spare and unremarkable, earning perhaps a mental grin now and then. At times it seems so matter-of-fact and confined to the protagonist's head that a reader wonders if it will devolve into a simple romance--which it never does. At its best it verges on deadpan and sports an understated, almost defeated sort of wit ("Although she knew there was nothing positively wild in how she was feeling about him, there was nothing negatively wild in it either. Definitely, she had no urge to run and scratch his face. Maybe if she had done, or shown her anger in any of the other ways she had planned, (he) would have felt better"). Throughout the novel(la?) the writing rings true and the characters are entirely believable.

The book is not at all oppressed by references to contemporary African politics or conspicuous references to poverty and misery. All the actors are comfortably middle class and the real target of Aidoo's analysis is Africa's understanding of gender.

I'll read another book of hers after this.