The genre novel in Nigeria is still yet to find a homegrown niche. OkadaBooks, now defunct, used to be its nursery, swarmed with tomes of romance, thrillers, mystery, sci-fi, epics, and fantasy. But the fact, however, remains that many Nigerian readers are still reading John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon (no doubt very good story spinners), Harlan Coben, whose books have been adapted for TV, Nora Roberts, Lisa Jackson, Jeffery Archer, and more, in that league of the omnipresent New York Times Bestseller.
Only a few known names come up on the Nigerian front, not because the writing isn’t there but because the writers are not as visible as they should be due to a lack of infrastructure. Yet many great stories are hidden in genre fiction; try Grisham’s The Testament, or Ken Follett’s The Hornet Flight. Even more so, we find in them seamless prose, clear as can be, that even teaches the fundamentals of writing a good sentence. We find this delight of words in the first chapter of Edify Yakusak’s novel, On A Day Like This, which eases her readers into a more comfortable reading position for the complete film.
In On A Day Like This, we begin with premonition in the very first words—“Kara was on her balcony, mindlessly chewing on the end of a paintbrush.” She is contemplating “the unfinished canvas in front of her.” Then her phone pings with a notification. Someone has messaged. This someone accuses her of ignoring them. This someone informs her they know the true cause of her mother’s death—and would Kara like to find out or hear about it in the papers? We ask, is this a whodunit, planting in our eager minds the kind of story it is, buoyed by its title, and charmed by the name of the lady Kara. Will she be all right? We try to find out by reading on.
But On A Day Like This is a psychological thriller, which means answers are not what Edify Yakusak is willing to dispense yet. Rather, it is a course she engages readers to be a part of. Kara is the 29-year-old daughter of billionaire Ademola Dosunmu with a buried past. She is the firstborn, and her siblings are Junior, and Deji, respectively. She is a successful painter and in love with middle-class climber and tech bro Nonso. She’s about to host her first exhibition in Nigeria when she gets this strange message about the truth of her mother’s death, two years later.
Every character in the novel has something they’re going through: some, present conflicts; others, a past they’re either trying to keep buried, recover, or be redeemed from. It is all of these that come to a confluence point or which form the spine of the novel’s narrative arc. Kara, who needs to find the truth of her mother’s death. Her lover, Nonso, who supports her and at the same time is still getting used to being a part of a billionaire family. Junior, a weakling and spoilt rich kid battling inferiority. Deji, the insecure child who finds a sembalnce of contentment, but then loses it. A dead wife who was so full of joie de vivre and abandon but was unfaithful; her husband, the billionaire Ademola Dosunmu, finding love again with his new wife, Victoria; Victoria, a physiotherapist and garden-tending belle, who is the grand piece of the novel’s puzzle.
There’s enough interiority, especially and somewhat unexpectedly in the character of Kara’s father, and this contributes a rich flow in the story, giving it a very three-dimensional edge. Edify Yakusak insists in this novel being an onion to be peeled off skin after skin, till revelation, and she uses a limited panoptic point-of-view to give readers clues, through the technique of telling the individual stories of each character, broken into chapters. We also take a glimpse into billionaire life: rich Dosunmu with a yacht on Lagos’ bays, electric cars, crème de la crème, designers (Patek watches, Cartier bracelets), all boasting the efficiency of money making life sure, purposeful, and certain; a voyeuristic pleasure or nightmare. But telling us, all the same, as the lives of the Dosunmus reveal, that the rich are also fraught with ordinary problems.
A dark oedipal twist appears towards the end of the novel—in fact, there’s so much sensual tension throughout the novel in some of Edify’s characters, so this only harmonises perfectly as an outcome or reveal. Secrets pile, some are unravelled; who is a hero and who is a villain, as these opposites switch places within the novel; the storytelling assuming the mazelike, throttling to the good old classical dénouement. Some sentences stand out and leap at you—“He had seemed so distant and untouchable, exalted: a quixotic dream.” Some with scenic lushness: “The house looked then like the epitome of old money—a three-storey building designed like a Georgian.” On A Day Like This is a peek into forbidden secrets, the costs of desire, and the punishment of living, if you wish. It is entertaining and gripping. It is a short, brilliant novel whose gratifying end arrives in the blink of an eye.♦
On A Day Like This is published by Masobe Books. Buy it here.
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Carl Terver is a Nigerian writer and critic, and the founding editor of Afapinen. 𝕏