I am pleased to report to the world at large that a seminal work that holds promise of family stability into the next millennium has issued from Nigeria. It is a story that breaks suddenly with infidelity and breathtakingly takes any reader through storms arising from lust into dangerous spiritism which lust inexorably attracts, and thence into mundane responses aimed at holding one’s own ground from invasion of undesirable family feud.
The author is evidently a product of experience of family feud. She draws convincingly from that experience to write a subject lesson in humility and patience under stress, with ample evidence of human frailties which people confront as a matter of course in daily life, with increasing allurements to comforts and sex which money can buy. The work is a subtle warning to everyone to be wary of conducts likely to imperil virtue resulting from lust.
The title is apt. I would have chosen ‘Forbidding Price of Lust’, but I am not the author. The author is versed in suspense-building that drives the reader to the end of the work with frenetic zest to see what unfolds next in the kaleidoscope of events that seems to squeeze timespan and evoke reverence for the author as an adept who probably draws from such an experience and now finds joy in counselling.
A young man whose full background only appears at the end of the work appropriately played his days of big money into darkness with every step. He marries a heartthrob from good background and, after family-building, did not check himself against new responsibilities of family stability, but prefers to invest foolishly in desires of the flesh. A heartless gold-digger sets up a trap and he fell. Charms from her nether regions that afflicted his cultivated family nearly ruined him. A concoction from agents of darkness held him spellbound in an affair. Although the spell had total grip of the lover boy, Clems, there was no narrative of the end of Cherry, the wild lover who pulled him near the gates of Hades with her own desires for comfort.
Clems’ wife, Clara, was almost drawn into mischief herself as she got help to fight back to re-possess her husband who she believed was under a breakable spell. Her effort was a mere ripple. The spell held on. Since there was no narrative covering the tragic end of the origin of the spell, the reader can figure out from Clems’ own experience that she was bound to disaster in the same idiom or worse.
No woman with university education should let this work slip by her unread. It is a continuing story of women emancipation kicked off by Monrovia Strategies that culminated in Beijing Platform, which the author appropriately imported into the work to drive home the need for self-respect and self-love as a prerequisite for spreading love and positive social responsibility to all with whom any woman makes contact. And there lies the connection between the experienced author’s draught from her own experience and the universal appeal which the work represents. After all, experience garnishes an author’s work and blows up conviction. It is also the sum of mistakes made and lessons drawn from each and all.
To me, it is a like a movie script with the title ‘Everywoman’ apart from my earlier choice of title. It is the craft of a lawyer, a social worker, an educationist, a woman leader and a strong pillar of a family to which I am closely acquainted. The author is also an ardent Catholic to whom symbolism of receiving a ring within the precincts of a church packs immense impression on the stability of a suitor that was to be betrayed.
Each time the author appears in public, she herself consults her mirror adequately, and judging by the picture of her at the inside cover of the book, she certainly lives up her prescriptions for enduring family stability. This reviewer is aware of her noteworthy appearance at the home of an honoree alumnus of University of Nigeria during 44th convocation ceremonies of that my alma mater. She shot out with unmistakable glamour and held Lions and Lionesses spell-bound. Like a flash in the pan, she vanished like quicksilver in family respect.
As a long time leader of women on campus of my alma mater, she held a city captive with this philosophy which should, like unction, bring peace and progress into that enclave that is distant from vice.
There are errors of grammar and construction like in most works written by people under 50 these days. ‘Next tomorrow’, for example, is ‘day after tomorrow; ‘severally’, which means ‘separately’, is used as equivalent of ‘several times’ and ‘so on’. All told, the errors did not derogate from the offering a masterpiece to women and men who care for balance in the society and the family.
I am proud of my clan sister-in-law for engaging in and finishing this work almost perfectly with Igbo idioms and parables and folklore translated reductively into English. I would have preferred the raw stuff alongside her translation. As the reader well knows, Igbo proverbs are only adulterated by translation into any other languages. The language stands irrevocable and unapologetic as evidence of ancestral lore.
Any woman worldwide with heartaches originating from family feud of any type should pick up this work and restore her sanity without bothering about the cost of the book. At N2,000 per copy even, I find Kraftgriots (Kraft Books Limited) at Sango, Ibadan, the home of publishers through seven decades, a commendable publishing effort worth the purchase by all educated men/women folk worldwide.
I quarrel with the cowboy hat on top of the near and main cross on which woman’s dangerous destiny hangs instead of our Igbo crown or cap. The frock on the same near cross seems to sell the impression of an imported motif for the work.
The work, to me, stands as a unique Nigerian contribution to letters for all time.
