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devin_reads_books 's review for:
Black Sunday
by Tola Rotimi Abraham
This dark, devastating family saga follows the lives of four siblings in Lagos, Nigeria: twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike and their brothers, Andrew and Peter. Their comfortable, middle-class existence evaporates almost overnight after their mother loses her stable job and their father loses their savings to an unscrupulous megachurch and its celebrity pastor; first their mother abandons them, then their father does the same. Forced to survive by any means necessary, the siblings gradually drift apart. That separation and its consequences are the driving force of the novel.
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This book was devastating. One reviewer called it “death by a thousand cuts,” and I think he was right: the indignities suffered by these four siblings over almost two decades, and the choices they make to cope with those indignities, are harrowing. Parts of this book were hard to read. One strength of the book is its critique of patriarchal institutional religion, particularly the prosperity-gospel Pentecostalism that Ariyike intentionally embraces when she marries the pastor who cheated her father out of their family savings. Ariyike’s marriage is baldly self-serving: she wants to become a religious celebrity and reap the benefits of wealth and status. She succeeds, but the closing chapter of the book also shows us the terrifying captivity of her choice. Another strength was the author’s treatment of toxic masculinity and its dire consequences, managed most poignantly in the chapter about Peter’s experiences at boarding school, where his motherlessness in a world of male dominance results in his inability to express himself.
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Despite its strengths, though, a major flaw in this book was that Abraham did too much telling and not enough showing. This quality is particularly acute in the final chapter about Ariyike. Those moments felt not only didactic (“Here’s the point I’m trying to make with this character!”) but also like a betrayal of otherwise well-developed, sympathetic, and complex characters. Still, it’s a worthwhile read if you want to think more about issues of religion, gender, and money in a postcolonial context.
...
This book was devastating. One reviewer called it “death by a thousand cuts,” and I think he was right: the indignities suffered by these four siblings over almost two decades, and the choices they make to cope with those indignities, are harrowing. Parts of this book were hard to read. One strength of the book is its critique of patriarchal institutional religion, particularly the prosperity-gospel Pentecostalism that Ariyike intentionally embraces when she marries the pastor who cheated her father out of their family savings. Ariyike’s marriage is baldly self-serving: she wants to become a religious celebrity and reap the benefits of wealth and status. She succeeds, but the closing chapter of the book also shows us the terrifying captivity of her choice. Another strength was the author’s treatment of toxic masculinity and its dire consequences, managed most poignantly in the chapter about Peter’s experiences at boarding school, where his motherlessness in a world of male dominance results in his inability to express himself.
...
Despite its strengths, though, a major flaw in this book was that Abraham did too much telling and not enough showing. This quality is particularly acute in the final chapter about Ariyike. Those moments felt not only didactic (“Here’s the point I’m trying to make with this character!”) but also like a betrayal of otherwise well-developed, sympathetic, and complex characters. Still, it’s a worthwhile read if you want to think more about issues of religion, gender, and money in a postcolonial context.