A Captivating Debut on Self-Discovery

In January 2023, news broke that Jessica George’s debut novel, Maame, will be adapted into a TV series set in London. The news did not surprise me because my first thought after reading this novel was that it would make an interesting story on screen. How so? George’s novel was a page-turner. Maddie Wright, the protagonist, was living in constant distress and regret and I found myself rooting for her. Hence, I could see how well this plot will do on TV.

In George’s debut that is set in London, we accompany a protagonist whose life is the ultimate focus of the novel. Maddie, undeniably, is the essence of Maame. The novel sums up an individual’s journey through self-discovery. Interestingly, along the way to self-discovery, this person battles with loneliness, grief, filial duties, career stagnation, and other captivating travails.

MADDIE’S BIG STAGE

In Maame, the world is Maddie’s big stage. Albeit an empty one, that stage is waiting until she’s ready to get on. And George successfully takes readers through all the steps leading to that stage. In this novel, Maddie’s self-realization comes later than usual and she is the typical late bloomer. ‘Mum alternates between calling me one of three things: my name and all its variations included, a term of endearment, or Maame. Maame has many meanings in Twi, but in my case, it means woman,’ Maddie says.

‘I’ve been called Maame ever since I can remember and I loved being referred to as a woman when I was still a girl. I loved being viewed as a grown-up before I’d even gotten my period. But now I—’ Maddie is not able to finish her sentence before she gets cut off. This is reminiscent of how she is always at the background of things, waiting for her star to shine. She allows the world around her to control her choices in life until she discovers what she truly wants out of life.

Maddie takes the first step towards the world’s big stage by resolving to move out of her family home where she lives with her not-so-present mother and her dad who is struggling with Parkinson’s Disease. Having to care for a father without much support from other family members has imbued her with feelings of guilt. However, this guilt will rapidly turn into grief, another of this novel’s several anchors.

Earlier this year, in an interview, George mentioned that in 2020, she lost my father to complications with Parkinson’s Disease. Perhaps this first-hand experience is why she was able to convincingly convey how Maddie was feeling when her father passed away. George had mentioned that losing her father ‘was the real first tangled grief that I’d had, so in order to kind of make sense of it, I just started randomly and spontaneously writing down thoughts and feelings during the process.’ Months later, she thought, ‘I could maybe turn this into a book.’ But documenting grief George’s way wasn’t so easy for Maddie. In the novel, Maddie says:

I love my dad and spent most of my time with him, so I expected the words to pour out of me, to effortlessly flow, but my notebook is still blank. This is an impossible thing to put into words. To some, it will look like we didn’t have much of a relationship, even at the end.

George’s exploration of Maddie’s life is additionally striking when it explores Maddie’s career growth. Maddie works as a theatre director’s PA. In addition to being a target of workplace abuse, she was fired from what we learn is an awful job. Now Maddie, in addition to a grown list of problems, has to navigate being jobless. ‘God, I can’t tell Mum I’ve been fired. There exists no greater shame in her mind than forced unemployment. She’d think it was my fault because there’s always a reason someone is fired,’ Maddie says. It was in this area, more than her other struggles, that I was strongly rooting for Maddie. And fortunately, Maddie was able to triumph.

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A Captivating Debut on Self-Discovery

MADDIE’S BIG STAGE

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