I saw this book recommended in Essence and it just happened to be on my local library's shelf. So score one for me, right? Wrong. First let's look at the cover of the book (see below). The title is there, the author's name is there, beneath the author's name an award is mentioned, and in the upper left corner the words "A Novel" are printed. There are two things wrong with this cover. Number one it is not a novel. There are three novellas in the book. The inner book jacket says this will be a "narrative triptych" about "three women who say no". Well the three stories are not connected in any concrete way other than singular name mentions.
The first story is about Norah, an attorney whose father is essentially a misogynistic d-bag. She is summoned by her father from France to Senegal to help get her brother out of jail. While she's at her father's house she is so unnerved by things she wets herself on several occasions. At no point in time during this story does she stand up to her father and say no as the book jacket said she would. Then this story abruptly ends and the second story begins.
This second story, the book jacket says, will be about Fanta who is from Senegal and travels with her French boyfriend/husband to France to live. The story is not about Fanta though! It's about the husband and told completely from his point of view. This story is over 120 pages where the husband's depression and insecurity is discussed. Fanta is only mentioned in relation to how the husband essentially ruined her career by bringing her to France because now she's not eligible to teach at college there, whereas she was a professor in Senegal. He goes on and on about how much she must resent him. Once again, Fanta's point of view is not shared and she never says no to anyone.
The final story is about Khady. We have only seen Khady once before in Norah's story. She was washing dishes and babysitting two little girls. That's it. Norah says, "What's your name?" and she replies "Khady Demba". In this story, which occurs after Norah's story, we find out Khady's husband has died and his family has put her out because she didn't have children. They say they are going to send her to a distant cousin named Fanta in France. This is the only mention of Fanta from the second story. Anyway, things go immensely wrong while she is trying to illegally immigrate to France and she ends up a prostitute.
And so that brings me to my number two problem with the cover. The title. It was unclear why or how these women were strong. I guess if you endure constant humiliation, depression, degradation, and hopelessness there is a type of strength in that endurance. Perhaps, the author intends for us to re-evaluate our own perceptions of strength. However, I would have preferred that these women exhibited the kind of strength that had more to do with hope, independence, and assertiveness. A more appropriate title may have been Three Exploited Women. Read at your own risk.
