Stay with Me By Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Blurb

Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage–after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures–Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time–until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does–but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. 

Club Thoughts

If we thought the bar was in hell, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s debut novel tells us it is in fact at the right hand of Satan. This book had the club asking burning questions: How far will a woman go to have a child? Why do men sacrifice their wives to hide their shame? What is the price of motherhood?

The answers were hard pills to swallow. Yejide had to scale mountains, bulldozing in-laws, a conniving sister wife, and her seductive brother-in-law to bear three children. Yet all her obstacles left her with drowning grief at the loss of two of her children and the pain of the ‘inevitable’ loss of her last to sickle cell anaemia.

And where is her husband through all this? Cowering under a massive secret that would exonerate Yejide from being shamed by her in-laws and soften the blow of child loss trauma. The consensus of the group was “men ain’t shit.” Although our mood was mostly somber at the tribulations of Yejide, we could not help but be angry at the audacity of the men in her life. She is betrayed and deceived by the love of her life, and he does not muster up the courage to say a simple sorry (not like that would have helped, but it’s a start).

Which led us to the question: Why are men blessed with knowledge of the ins and outs of reproduction, while women are given a simple ‘do whatever to make your husband happy’? We discussed traditional Nigerian cultural expectations around marriage and found them extremely lacking in the women’s arena. The time period the novel is set in, the 1980s, set women up for failure. In the book, a woman’s place is to make her husband happy, to not question him, and to be a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law. Once Yejide is seen as unfit, after being unable to have a child during the first 4 years of the marriage, she is discarded by her mother-in-law. Her husband, Akin, whom she put all her trust in, expects her to sit quietly and accept his new wife. Yejide was sold a dream, and it all came crashing down when she was found inadequate. The ones who were to love her unconditionally were dead before their teenage years, and she is left with a child supposedly destined for the same fate, a lying, deceitful coward for a husband, and a soul brimming with anger.

So, how far will a woman go to keep her marriage? Concerning Yejide, she will go to the ends of the earth to stay in a betrayal-streaked marriage, for her last surviving child. And once she gets that painful call from Akin of the ‘death’ of the child, she has nothing else to stay for.

Adébáyọ̀ is straight to the point and direct as she immerses us in the grief of Nigerian marriages, aka ‘Struggle Love’. Her writing is beautiful as it reveals to us each hard blow the main character receives in life. She writes Yejide blunt in her anger, yet soft in her pain. In Akin’s intrusive narration within the novel, she writes him apologetic yet filled with ‘manly’ justification of his decisions. This novel brought tears, anger, and laughter. It brought questions on the woman’s place in Nigerian society. Most importantly, it brought an escape for Yejide, who has been let down by her loved ones and society, and in that, other women reading can find strength to leave.

Reviews

Beautifully written. In life , after God, fear men!

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I thought this was really well written but I have issues with the plot and overall pacing.

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This is my previous rating from when I read it four years ago, not sure what I’d rate it now. I thought it was really insightful and emotional, I felt like I’d gained valuable insight into an experience I was previously unaware of.

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I will definitely get round to finishing it, very strong start !!