STAY WITH ME Ayobami Adebayo July 9, 2019 – Posted in: Books

Nigeria in the 80s. Two young people meet and unite their lives. The moving and realistic narrative of a wedding. 

The two narrators of Ayobami Adebayo's impressive debut novel, a Nigerian woman and her husband, remember the stories they heard as children and hope to pass them on to their own sons and daughters. These are folktales with talking animal heroes and magic potions, but while they often have an old-fashioned moral ("He who has children owns the world"), Yezide invents her own versions by adding new pieces, turning them into allegories that speak of her own life but also that of her long-suffering country.

Between myth and reality, the Stay with me is a book that has a deeply lyrical yet modern writing. It is, at once, a gothic parable about pride and betrayal, but also a thoroughly contemporary – and deeply moving – portrait of a marriage. 

As the story unfolds, Yezide realizes her place and her less conservative views. Problems in her marriage force her to question traditional attitudes towards women in Nigeria – including the supremacy of motherhood and obedience to the husband – and she tries to forge her own path from the one she inherited from family and society.

Adebayo, who was just 29 when she wrote the book, is an excellent storyteller. He writes not only with extraordinary grace, but also with genuine wisdom about love, loss, and the potential for redemption that every human has. 

The Stay with me, offers a completely fresh look at the institution of marriage and family, thanks to the author's ability to map the intertwining family relationships with subtle nuances, but also to describe with precision and understanding the desires, fears and delusions of her characters.