![]() ![]() We think they grow up and mature because they become big, but they remain babies. I would like to avoid spoilers, so it should be sufficient for this review to inform you that Rachel, after a torrid few days, receives this counsel from her stepmother towards the end of the first book: Halfway through the first book, it becomes obvious that another part of the suspense lies within Rachel: Will she give in to the accretion of evidence against this man trying to win her over? Will she reconsider the acclaimed womaniser Ejike, who somehow isn’t banished from the narrative even after losing the cold war for what the reader imagines is Rachel’s warm heart? It is to the writer’s credit that she doesn’t quite situate the possibility of Doug’s lies unravelling as the sole element of suspense in the story. Suddenly, the popular social media line “Thank God I don’t look like what I’m going through” attains a much less attractive connotation. Just as important a hurdle is his insistence on presenting himself as different from his actual circumstance. In the first book, Doug’s less than wealthy background is one of the hurdle’s Rachel has to jump through or, well, go under. One of The Naïve Wife’s pleasures comes from facing this difficulty head-on. It is much less easy to carve out comic antics from a story about money in a time of so much wealth and crushing poverty. It is perhaps easy to see how that is the case, given the ready-made comedy in stories featuring a clash of cultures. In the current epoch of narratives dealing with Nigerian romance, some of the most celebrated stories have focused on ethnicity, the primary example being The Wedding Party, which has remained a top 3 earner at the Nigerian box office. The exchange has an immediate emotional repercussion, but it also is a subtle annotation on the intersection between capitalism and romance in a country divided as much by ethnicity as it is by class and economic status. It sounds like a reasonable thing to say-in fact, it is true-but that is hardly the point and Rachel berates him, saying, “If you can lie about that, what else are you lying about?” I just didn’t want you to see me any less worthy…” You have to understand that being with someone like you would be daunting for a man like me. “Why are you being like this, Rache? I said I’m sorry. “Look, it was an honest mistake,” he says. Upon confronting him, he attempts to downplay his culpability. In one key scene, she has just found out that her fiancé has lied to her about owning a car. Whatever the case, the lady is the story’s most believable character and it’s a smart narrative strategy that Ufuomaee has made the series revolve around her, her godliness, and her all-too-familiar chagrin at being let down by the Nigerian male. As protagonist, she comes off the page and you can perhaps consider her as an amalgam of any number of Nigerian young women you know. ![]() One of the reasons that scene is believable is Ufuomaee’s investment in the characterisation of Rachel. Her first thought is “No.” Her second is: “How can this man look after me?” But the facts of wealth are the facts of wealth: when Doug, much too early, proposes to Rachel by singing Stevie Wonder’s lovely tune ‘For Your Love’, the first thing she notices is his shoes: “an old pair of loafers”. And at some point, Ejike comes to see Rachel at her place and is faced with a territorial Doug winding his territorial arm around the territory that is Rachel’s waist. And so it is that Doug goes in fast and hard. The choice should be easy, right? Maybe-but as you maybe remember, a disadvantage can make a hustler out of the disadvantaged. Ejike comes from truly wealthy stock Doug, on the other hand, has borrowed Ejike’s vehicle. Ejike is clearly a lady’s man Doug isn’t quite cut from the same cloth. They are both good looking but that is where the vital stats end. Ejike, brother to her sister’s groom, and Doug, friend to Ejike. ![]() Soon enough, there are two men who might stand a chance, or well, give her hopes for matrimony a chance. So, there she is: a God-fearing woman working as a radio personality seeking a man for whom she would leave her father-her mum is late-but it hasn’t quite worked out. ![]()
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