By Larissa Page
Content warning: child abuse, sexual assault/abuse, infertility, kidnapping
The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is the perfect new novel for fans of the 2020 best seller The Girl with the Louding Voice. Though the story differs greatly, I found some of the themes to be the same and I truly enjoyed getting to experience the resiliency of Nigerian women again.
The Son of the House opens with two women, Nwabulu and Julie, who are kidnapped together in Nigeria, in 2011. Known to each other as new friends, they choose to spend their time in captivity sharing their stories with each other. We are given a recount of Nwabulu’s life, from being a housemaid with the dream of becoming a typist, before her dreams are crushed by both her decisions and the betrayals of others. We also hear Julie’s story of being a middle-aged single woman until she tricks her suitor into marriage, before suffering infertility. During their time together, they discover they are linked in an inexplicable, heartbreaking way.
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is a fantastic writer. I found this novel easy to read and I didn’t struggle to understand the experiences of those with whom I don’t have a shared experience. The emotions and feelings were well described even in situations where I felt I may not feel the same way, or with actions I may not have agreed with. I also found the class difference between the two women to be very evident as well as the class movement by Nwabulu. It was well written and believable to see her growth.
While I didn’t connect as much with Julie’s story, and I certainly didn’t feel myself rooting for her in quite the same way (I do wonder if that was on purpose), I do also see the purpose Julie serves in this story. While I wish the story was a bit more Nwabulu-centred, Julie shows us a different type of women’s resiliency. She may not always have been ethical, but she took care of herself and did what she could to make herself a family.
I really, really loved how this novel was set up. First, we are given the women together during the kidnapping, agreeing to tell their stories; then we are given Nwabulu’s story up a certain point; then Julie’s. Julie’s story gives us what we need to understand the connection between the women but not enough to know how they came together. Following both stories is how they found each other, how they ended up kidnapped together, and just how much of their stories they choose to tell each other. It really kept me guessing until the very end whether the characters themselves would tell the truth, make the connections, and ultimately make their ways home. This one really succeeded in being a human drama that keeps you guessing and hooked to know what happens next.
An excellent look at the class structure of 1970s Nigeria through to 2011, The Son of the House gives us a window into the lives of two very different women with a shocking connection. Each of them struggles with different issues in their growth over four decades, though ultimately, they end up together in a dark room where they share the stories of themselves with us and each other. We are shown the struggles and strife, growth and resiliency, of women in a patriarchal world.