Everything Good Will Come Book

Reading this felt like being told someone's life story, and the Nigerian context makes it especially interesting for me as I've now read a few books from Nigerian authors and settings. Since I was cooped up with her it's a good thing I liked Enitan; her high spirits, sharp tongue, feminist discontent and friendliness towards other women like Sheri, whom her family and husband dislike, made her a firm friend from early in the telling.

The friendship between the two women is the most attractive thing about the narrative to me and Sheri's sparkiness provides some needed leaven. Both of them have to negotiate a position in a culture that has limiting and exacting expectations of women and they meet the sexism they experience in totally different styles. It was good to see stubborn Enitan admitting she had learned from Sheri, and confident Sheri taking advice from Enitan when she needed it. Such subtle details give the story emotional richness, and the strong focus on relationships integrates with flavourful descriptions of everyday life and political commentary.

Atta's direct, unornamented but sure-footed and witty style binds everything together to give the impression of real autobiography, told chronologically and without foreshadowing. Enitan's changing priorities move the narrative forward, rather than a storytelling voice shaping and smoothing. Instead of leading to a central crisis, the story is set in a zone of unrelenting tension, where the emergence of Enitan's political consciousness roots in the reader a deepening sense of Nigeria's problems. Atta doesn't explain, rather the text embodies the losses and conflicts of community and tradition in the age of extractivism; for example Enitan discovers in her relationship with an artist her limited knowledge of her Yoruba heritage, and remembers her mother's flamboyant style of dress before she became absorbed in the church, and it's possible to read the creeping cultural homogenisation of global neoliberalism in the language and desires of the characters, for example the way economic problems are blamed on Muslim 'Northerners'. However, the focus on personal happiness and self-determination rang my social justice bells pleasantly. This is an easy read with far-from-easy themes.