"Stay With Me," which is Ayobami Adebayo's first novel, starts out first as a Nigerian comedy of manners. A man's wife is unable to conceive, and so his mother urges him to take a second wife, which angers the first. Then the two are engaged in some sort of contest to see who gets pregnant first, because the culture values women only in terms of their ability to reproduce.
So desperate is the first wife to get pregnant, she begins to manifest all the symptoms of the condition, including not ovulating. I don't understand how this is possible, nor is it really explained. She does get pregnant, but, through a combination of a terrible decision on the part of the husband, which is not revealed to her, and genetic deficiencies, about halfway through, the meaning of the novel's title, becomes wrenching, and the book is heartbreaking. As is the ending, which is both hopeful and heartbreaking.
Yet the writing is balanced, and did not upset me, like "The Light Between Oceans." There is a blend of history and male cultural malaise, but the novel never loses sight of the women's issues it reveals--and the terrible price they often pay.
I was absorbed throughout. And I was glad the novel ended on a hopeful, but realistic, note.
"Stay With Me," darlings, will stay with those who read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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