Nigerians, here and at home

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alfred A. Knopf.

218 pp. $24.95

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Reviewed by Richard Burgin

There are various ways writers can be aesthetically ambitious, but in our era they are often judged to be so only if their prose and the structure of their fiction is complex, elusive, and somewhat arcane.

The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of the novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, is an exception to this "rule." She's a deeply ambitious and justly celebrated writer whose prose is lucid and whose narrative method is simple and straightforward. Indeed, the 12 clearly told tales that make up The Thing Around Your Neck resonate powerfully because of their thematic depth and their author's ability to understand and reveal her characters.

The Thing Around Your Neck explores the frequently troubled lives of Nigerians in their native country as well as those trying to adapt to life in America. (Adichie herself divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.)

Often these stories involve a conflict between personal fulfillment and political commitment and/or fidelity to one's roots. In "The Arrangers of Marriage," Ofodile (now called Dave Bell) tries assiduously to instruct his newly arrived wife (and the story's narrator), Chinaza, about how to succeed in the United States, and why she must rename herself Agatha.

" 'You don't understand how it works in this country. If you want to get anywhere you have to be as mainstream as possible. . . . You have to use your English name here.'

" 'I never have . . . I've been Chinaza Okafor my whole life.'

" 'You'll get used to it, baby,' he said, reaching out to caress my cheek. 'You'll see.' "

The theme of the displaced African, confused and alienated in America in an almost Alice in Wonderland-like way, recurs in a number of these stories. In "Imitation," a perplexed Nigerian woman who has recently moved to Philadelphia learns that her husband in Lagos has moved his mistress into the family home, while in the collection's title story, Adichie begins with these lines:

"You thought everybody in America had a car and a gun; your uncles and aunts and cousins thought so, too. Right after you won the American visa lottery they told you: In a month, you will have a big car. Soon, a big house. But don't buy a gun like those Americans."

While Adichie's vision of America is often bitterly comic and sometimes scathing, she is equally, if not more, critical of the injustice and violence that pervades Nigeria. "Cell One," for example, is a kind of broken family romance told from the daughter's point of view that centers on the increasingly dangerous behavior of her 17-year-old brother, Nnamabia.

The handsome, charmingly sensitive but spoiled son of a college professor living in an upscale university community, Nnamabia has begun stealing, once even taking all his mother's jewelry. When his sister tries to examine his motives, the psychological problems of Nnamabia dovetail with the social problems of his environment.

As she explains, "He did it, too, because other sons of professors were doing it." Like Nnamabia's parents, the other parents deny that their children are committing crimes, and instead of punishing them, continue "to moan about the riffraff from town coming onto their sacred campus to steal."

Meanwhile, "the thieving boys were the popular ones. They drove their parents' cars in the evening, their seats pushed back and their arms stretched out to reach the steering wheel."

Things change for Nnamabia when he's arrested for stealing a car with some gang members and is imprisoned in Enugu, the state capital, where his father has no influence. In prison, he matures and develops his previously hidden strength of character. Shaken by the cruelty and injustice of the prison, he begins to protest when an innocent old man becomes his cellmate and is humiliated publicly by the police.

Nnamabia's protests cause him to be transferred to the brutal and infamous Cell One. When he's released, he doesn't complain melodramatically, as he would have in the past.

"Nnamabia did not say what had happened to him in Cell One. . . . It would have been so easy for him, my charming brother, to make a sleek drama of his story, but he did not."

"Cell One" is, perhaps, the most successful instance of Adichie's enriching her story by adding a social dimension to it, maintaining all the while a fine balance between the personal and political. When she gives in too much to her didactic impulse, as she does in a few of her stories, and moves away from the unique personality of her characters to make political points, her writing suffers a bit.

But overall, this is a minor complaint. While many of her characters are suffused with sorrow, they also generally evolve enough to make decisions that can help their lives. Sometimes, as in "Imitation," it involves the betrayed wife returning to Lagos to confront her husband. Sometimes, as in "Cell One," it's a protest in which Nnamabia stands up for someone else.

For Adichie, hope lies in taking action, as indeed she herself did in writing this poignant, compelling book.