Reviews
Ghana Must Go
Clare F Hobba
Taiye
Selasi
Viking
318pp
Ghana Must Go is the eagerly-awaited first
novel by Taiye Selasi. Even before this novel appeared,
Selasi was fêted as a very bright young writer and photographer,
with academic credentials from Yale and Oxford, famous for coining
the term 'Afropolitan' to describe those like herself, young,
beautiful, wealthy, whose success in the arts and business crosses
international boundaries.
The novel recounts the story of a family whose
origins are in West Africa. Kweku, the father, is a Ghanaian, from
a family so 'dirt poor' that his sister died of treatable TB.
Unusually bright at school he is helped to a US scholarship by
missionaries. In the States, he meets and marries Nigerian Fola
who, like Selasi herself, has some Scottish blood. Together they
follow the American dream, working stupendously hard to gain rank
and fortune. Kweku becomes an exceptionally skilled surgeon, Fola
sacrifices a place at law school in order to raise their four
children. Yet in the end, they are cruelly disappointed when a
member of a rich, powerful, white family dies on Kweku's operating
table. Although they had been advised against the operation, the
family blames Kweku, and against all justice, succeed in obtaining
his dismissal.
Until now, Kweku's own family has been a close-knit
unit, but the shame of what has happened to him drives Kweku away
from them. Shame is a fracturing force for other characters too:
Fola is felled by the desertion of her husband and fails to protect
her twins. Olu, the eldest son, tries to undo his father's failure
by following a very similar career, but with even more polished
perfection. Sadie, the youngest, is ashamed by the fact that she
cannot live up to the beauty and intellectual perfection of the
rest of the family, and the twins suffer deep shame at what
happened to them while their mother was not watching over them.
To a Christian, the answer to their strife might be
forgiveness -accepting God's forgiveness and forgiving themselves
for their failures. However, although peace and wholeness is the
goal of the characters in Ghana Must Go, they do not seek
religious solace and religion, either Christian or traditional
Ghanaian, is hardly referenced. There is however, a spiritual
character 'who speaks truth' - an ancient Ghanaian called Mr
Lamptey who helps Kweku build his dream house. He is the opposite
of Kweku, both a gadfly to him and the object of his respect -
concerned with integrity, rather than reputation. Kweku, by
contrast, trails an invisible 'camera man', documenting his every
move.
The emotion that preceded all this destructive shame
was of course pride - all of Kweku's family except Sadie glitter
with beauty and intelligence and are high achievers. This could
have taken away any sympathy we might have for them. Except that
they, and Kweku in particular, are portrayed as people trying to
outrun a curse. All their efforts are not just to advance
themselves, but are also to disprove the negative stereotypes, in
particular, of the African male. It is brave of Selasi to name
these stereotypes, and only a writer of African origin has any
right to do so. Kweku is striving to show that he, an African man,
may be an exemplary professional, a faithful husband and loving
father, but when he hits the wall of prejudice which damages his
career, he is broken and deserts his family.
Traditionally, first novels are often
autobiographical, perhaps a combination of it being easier to write
what you know and also of having a certain amount of stuff to get
off your chest. Like the youngsters in the novel, Selasi is half
Nigerian, half Ghanaian. Her father was a surgeon, her mother a
paediatrician. Like Taiwo in the novel, she is also one of twins,
although Taiwo has a twin brother, Taiye Selasi a twin sister.
Before I knew this biographical information, I wondered why Selasi
had complicated her novel with so many different countries and
nationalities, but for her, this clearly represents normality.
I have seen criticism of the overly poetic language
of the early part of the book, but to be weighed against that
criticism is the great skill Selasi displays in the tautness of all
the different story lines and the management of multiple locations,
time periods and voices, which is an extraordinary feat -
especially in a first novel. For me the only element which jarred
was the dénouement of the ills suffered by the twins while their
parents were lost in unhappiness. It had a feeling of being
invented to provide a trauma necessary to the plot.
I found the acknowledgements section of the novel of
great interest, not only because it fills two pages, not only
because it thanks Toni Morrison, but because Selasi begins it, 'I
am so very grateful to God.' I guess then that in this book, where
the father and then the mother fail and a family is torn apart and
the pieces sent flying out, I had wondered whether God might
provide the parenting that the characters needed to be whole again.
Instead it seems that it is each other that they need to find, and
to reaffirm their relationships with one another.
Perhaps Selasi, as a savvy young writer, knows that
too much mention of a Christian God might get her work sidelined.
Ghana Must Go, however, has received much critical acclaim. It will
be interesting to see whether, in future, an increasingly secure
Selasi will have more to say about the God to whom she is 'so very
grateful'.
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