A Tale of Unhinged Women

A Kind of Madness opens with the farcical story ‘Nwunye Belgium’. This story follows the life of Udoka, a young woman whose betrothal to an Onitsha trader of modest means is thwarted by her mother, Agatha, who engages her instead to her friend’s Belgium-based doctor son. In the wake of a reluctant but eventual connivance between mother and daughter, news of Udoka’s engagement to the sophisticated, yet-to-be-seen medical doctor spreads like wildfire and she wears proudly the appellation, Nwunye Belgium (the Belgian Wife), until things fall apart in a maelstrom of embarrassment, lies, and allegations of intergenerational madness. The gold-digging mother, the erstwhile fiancé of unimpressive fortune, and the auspicious suitor who never comes (or is not at all auspicious) are tropes easily recognizable to anyone familiar with the Nollywood films of the late 90s and early 2000s. But rather than being jejune or laden with the maudlinism typical of turn-of-the-century Nollywood, the story exemplifies the writer’s attentive treatment of her characters’ moral positions and their justifications. This approach makes A Kind of Madness a compelling read, from fly page to last page. Through Udoka, we learn of the lecturers’ indefinite strike and are startlingly reminded that the Nigerian Dream has for a long time (the story is set in 1997) been to escape Nigeria’s impoverishing grip for elsewhere. Agatha’s hunger for a better life drives her to morally questionable decisions which can be termed insane, narcissistic or unhinged, but Okonkwo situates her in a station that sensibly precipitates her ‘madness’.

In ‘Long Hair’, the setting and events of which are relatable to anyone familiar with the organizational and inter-personal dynamics of girls-only secondary schools, the protagonist internally rationalizes her incendiary gossip-mongering with ‘I wasn’t doing anything bad; I only said what I was thinking.’ Apart from imbuing her characters with nuance profound enough to set the atmosphere for their respective antics, Okonkwo sets them up as dummies—or holograms, if you will—that answer the question of what we would do if no one was watching, since it is not one we are honest enough to answer; and even if we were, we would not dare. Thus, does she help us, in the manner of all great fiction writers, to tackle a question which answering would come at a cost too great to be managed.