When I first began reading this book, it was surprisingly uphill going, but only just for a few pages/chapters until one accustoms oneself to the writing style and dialogue in Ghanaian-inflected English, which is rather charming:
You mean what? Miss Belinda! […] Adjei! You standing there in a silence to be so unfair. Aden? I want to hear of this my special thing. Tell of it!
p5
This novel depicts Ghanaian society, both in Ghana and in London, and it comes across as a very ceremonious society given their speech in English, proud of its culture, quite judgemental given the way people talk about other people and mostly critically, and are in turn very concerned with what others think of them.
Our protagonist, Belinda, a very young woman brought to be a housegirl or servant in Uncle and Aunty’s house in Kumasi. Mary, an eleven-year old, is brought in the same time, and the two girls become as close as sisters, with Belinda very much mothering the younger girl. Mary is wonderfully sprightly. When Belinda takes her to the zoo for a treat, Mary sees the stewardess in the admissions booth and pipes up,
“Madam,’ Mary said, suddenly beaming. ‘I have to tell you, this your hat is very fine and well. So smart and proper. I like this golden edge it has a lot. Big congratulations on wearing it’
p7
She seems both precocious and forward for an eleven-year old servant girl.
Belinda and Mary have only worked together for Uncle and Auntie for just over 6 months, when Nana, a wealthy UK-based Ghanaian, comes to ask Belinda to come to London as a companion for her daughter, Amma, whom she worries is wayward. To tempt Belinda to come, Nana offers her good schooling, some extra money for her mother; Belinda only asks if Mary is coming too, to which the answer is that Mary stays in Kumasi.
Nana and Aunty behaved like everything would be easy. Belinda worried it would not be. Even so, she nodded along then got down on her knees to thank them because she knew her role and place, understood how things should be. And, at their feet, she bowed her head and gave praise in quiet phrases because getting further away from what she had left in the village was more of a blessing than either Nan or Aunty could understand.
p12
From this we see how Belinda is wise and discreet, keeps her own counsel, clearly has her own secrets and demons, but is painfully well behaved and self-controlled. It is also curious how formal some exchanges and social hierarchies are, and how casual others may be – Belinda ‘knows her role and place’, and yet she is treated something between family and servant, not relegated to merely serving, and the families she works for are generous to her and treat her almost as one of their own. It would appear housegirls are given a lot of leeway in this community.
The way the characters express themselves, the unusual way verbs and nouns are used, is delightful.
“I have to do an apology, I suppose” (p29)
“It was my God’s honest.” (p29)
“I have some feelings about this one you have told” (p28)
“’You are not for to worry.’ […] ‘To not have worrying.’ […] ‘You gots to be speaking it loud or else I will not be getting you.’”p49; “explain me again” (p144)
“Sorry, I” (p119)
“The girl, she” (p51).
Frequently, the dialogue is missing subjects.
“A great like you” (p103)
“Promise me to never” (p53)
“So, so have they found?” (p145).
Sometimes an ‘oh’ is added to the end of words, like free-oh, true-oh, greedy-oh. Characters often end sentences with emphasis, like “Eh henn” or “Eh-hehhn”.
And it is not just the dialogue which is so distinctive, the way Donkor writes, is also often evocative and rich: for example, making their way through the Ghanafoc group,
Amma and Belinda bleated gratitude like goats.
p38
Sometimes, Donkor is lyrical:
mixed race boys on skateboards zigzagged, flexing their angles to create art
p129
It is slightly disappointing there isn’t all that much about how Belinda found the UK, coming from Ghana as she has done. There are some amusing little bits like her being shocked at how cat owners in the UK kiss their pets and let them sleep on their beds, but very little about cultural shock or assimilation. Instead, Belinda is like Mary Poppins, too good to be true really, a perfect cook-cleaner-surrogate daughter-student-best friend to Amma. While there is no doubting she may well be eager to please, it is very strange Belinda never sets a foot wrong in such a new set of surroundings and never seems to need to ask much to find out how things are done.
However, on the plus side, the developing friendship between Belinda and Amma is nicely done, with Amma’s character is also really well drawn. In fact, there is such authenticity in the characters; whether or not there is cultural authenticity, I am in no position to judge, but there is a literary authenticity to this writing, which makes it immensely compelling. Alas, the last section of the book, Belinda’s return to Ghana, was less well handled, and loose ends did not get tied up. This was the most unsatisfactory part of the novel. The story is just left hanging, both Amma’s and Belinda’s, and the narrative seems to have no structure to end it or close the novel with, it just, well, stops! But despite some flaws in plotline, structure and pacing, it was a rewarding, charming read, and I look forward to further and better novels by Donkor to come. He has, after all, as a young debut author, already been hailed as a brave new voice on the British writing scene, and he has definitely brought the Ghanaian voice and flavour into the mainstream.
I do love the dialogue! Seems worth reading just for that.