A Tale of Two Sisters

~ My Sister, the Serial Killer. (Oyinkan Braithwaite) ~

A distinctly original addition to the satirical genre, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s first novel is set in her home country of Nigeria.

Korede is a capable, accomplished nurse who carries a torch for the handsome doctor Tade, and is the kind of person who keeps the wheels oiled at home and work. Her sister Ayoola is a complete contrast: a flighty head-turner who has a habit of not just discarding, but murdering her lovers.

On their one-month anniversary, she stabbed him in the bathroom of his apartment.

(but why was she carrying the knife?)

And after each murder, Ayoola, frantic and helpless, calls Korede, who steps in to clean up the evidence.

Korede is suspicious of Ayoola’s stories and resentful of her social success and charmed life, but her feelings come to a head when Ayoola visits the hospital and Tade falls for her. Korede has no friends, her father is dead and her mother as focused on Ayoola as everyone else. Who can she confide in? Only Muhtar, the comatose patient who gets no other visitors.

“Femi makes three, you know. Three, and they label you a serial killer.”

I whisper the words in case anyone were to pass Muhtar’s door.

The realities of life in Nigeria are comfortably woven into the novel. When Korede is stopped by an officious traffic policeman:

“Oga”, I say with as much deference as I can muster, “no vex. It was a mistake. E no go happen again.” My words are more his than mine. Educated women anger men of his ilk, and so I try to adopt broken English, but I suspect my attempt betrays my upbringing even more.

“Oga abeg, let’s sort am between ourselves.”

It is thoroughly modern:

Ayoola […] angles her phone over the pot of simmering èfó, just as I add the spinach.

“Hey people, èfó loading!”

[..] Could she really be uploading videos to Snapchat? [..] I grab the phone from her and hit delete, staining the screen with the oil on my hands.

“Too soon, Ayoola. Way too soon”.

As the novel progresses, flashbacks tell the story of Korede’s and Ayoola’s upbringing: their abusive, detached father who treats their mother like dirt, brings his mistresses home, , and is ready to sell the budding Ayoola to an elderly lech. The history begins to explain their mother’s helplessness and the co-dependent relationship between the sisters.

Two events bring the plot to a knifepoint: Muhtar, the patient in a coma to whom Korede has been telling all, wakes up. And Ayoola and Tade embark on a relationship. Will this go as badly as Ayoola’s previous relationships? What will Korede do if she has to choose between saving her love Tade and her sister Ayoola? And how much does Muhtar remember of Korede’s conversations?

This dark comedy is a quick read, but makes some trenchant social observations.