Publishers Weekly
11/11/2019
Abraham’s fierce debut follows four Nigerian siblings living in Lagos from childhood in 1996 through early adulthood in 2015. Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike, and their younger brothers, Andrew and Peter, spend their early years in a relatively stable middle-class family. Then their mother loses her government job and their father wastes the rest of the family’s savings in a get-rich-quick scheme. Soon after, their mother leaves for New York, their father takes off for parts unknown, and the kids are left in the care of their grandmother. As the girls grow up, Ariyike becomes involved in a Pentecostal church and eventually marries its charismatic leader, while Bibike takes a series of more secular jobs. Both are sexually exploited time after time. The chapters involving their brothers focus on the horrors of life in a boarding school—incessant bullying by the older students, food deprivation—which the sisters can’t attend because they must work to support the family. The novel’s strength lies in its lush, unflinching scenes, as when a seemingly simple infection leads gradually but inexorably to a life-threatening condition, revealing the dynamics of the family and community along the way. Abraham mightily captures a sense of the stresses of daily life in a family, city, and culture that always seems on the edge of self-destruction. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Black Sunday is a 2020 Kirkus Prize finalist
"I am left reeling and in awe."
—Sarah Jessica Parker
"Tola Rotimi Abraham's Black Sunday will destroy you. It won't be an explosion or any other ultraviolent thing. Instead, the novel will inflict a thousand tiny cuts on you, and your soul will slowly pour from them . . . Abraham creates believable characters whose stories could easily have come from real life [that] makes them simultaneously unique and universal, and it makes it easy to understand the way they see the world, even if their lens is ugly . . . Black Sunday is a literary wound that bleeds pain for a while, but you should stay the course, because that's followed by lots of love, beauty, and hope."
—Gabino Iglesias, NPR
"A searing debut novel about Nigerian twin sisters whose childhood bond is shattered by the political and social strife that impoverishes their family . . . Abraham explores deeply felt themes of violence, kinship, and self-reliance."
—Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
"Arresting . . . Abraham writes with a fluid yet deliberate moral compass . . . gripping . . . Exploring themes that delve into the power of storytelling, the fragility of identity, the nature of regret, and the power of redemption, Abraham writes with a grace and sophistication that belie this novel’s debut status. Hers is a voice and a vision to be recognized and watched."
—Carol Haggas, Another Chicago Magazine
"Set in Lagos over a period of decades, this absorbing debut follows twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike from the inseparable bonds of relative comfort to the challenges and independence of poverty."
—Karla Strand, Ms.
"This may be her first book, but Tola Abraham's storytelling power is immediately apparent—lush, sharp, and shot through with hope!"
—Well-Read Black Girl
"An elegant and exciting debut, exquisitely beautiful and painful in equal measure . . . Filled with poetic, vibrant prose and rooted in Nigerian culture, Abraham allows us a glimpse at four lives as they diverge from a single traumatic moment. It’s devastating, in its quiet way, but it’s also funny and sweet and occasionally quite profound."
—Jodie Sloan, The AU Review
"Abraham’s fierce debut follows four Nigerian siblings living in Lagos from childhood in 1996 through early adulthood in 2015 . . . The novel’s strength lies in its lush, unflinching scenes, as when a seemingly simple infection leads gradually but inexorably to a life-threatening condition, revealing the dynamics of the family and community along the way. Abraham mightily captures a sense of the stresses of daily life in a family, city, and culture that always seems on the edge of self-destruction."
—Publishers Weekly
"[A] piercing, supple debut . . . Abraham stuffs her novel past brimming, but its sophisticated structure and propulsive narration allow her to tuck in a biting critique of corrupt colonial religion and universally exploitative men . . . Twin sisters cut adrift in a perilous, duplicitous world learn that 'only the wise survive.' A formidable debut."
—Kirkus Reviews(starred review)
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-11-11
When things fall apart, four modern Nigerian siblings will need cunning to survive.
In this piercing, supple debut, a Nigerian father is scammed into ruin, and his wife, wearing her "favorite perfume, Elizabeth Arden's Red Door," soon flees to New York. The couple had honeymooned in Spain and lived a comfortable life, but "my family unraveled rapidly," says their daughter Ariyike, "in messy loose knots, hastening away from one another, shamefaced and lonesome, injured solitary animals in a happy world." Ariyike sells water on the Lagos streets while her sister scrubs hospital toilets, their younger brothers both hungry and in need of school fees. All subsist with their complaining Yoruba grandmother. In a riveting sequence, Bibike helps her twin, Ariyike, transform into Keke to audition for an on-air radio job. A male acquaintance advises: "Dress sexy, be confident, smell nice, and if you are offered something to drink, ask for water first....If they insist, ask for something foreign and healthy, like green tea." Keke isn't chosen but leverages a position anyway by trading sex and plying her encyclopedic knowledge of Luke's and Matthew's Gospels. Thus begins her rise in Christian radio. Sex—often predatory—forms and deforms all four siblings; the novel features several rapes. Chapters alternate in each sibling's voice over a stretch of 20 years. The brothers grow up and move to Chicago and out of the story. Abraham stuffs her novel past brimming, but its sophisticated structure and propulsive narration allow her to tuck in a biting critique of corrupt colonial religion and universally exploitative men. "It was fortunate to be beautiful and desired," says Bibike, whose voice opens the story. "It made people smile at me. I was used to strangers wishing me well. But what is a girl's beauty, but a man's promise of reward?" Bibike eventually becomes a healer who cherishes their Yoruba grandmother while Keke, the wife of a powerful and monstrous pastor, tastes ashes—the source of the novel's title.
Twin sisters cut adrift in a perilous, duplicitous world learn that "only the wise survive." A formidable debut.
