2024-05-31
A couple navigates marital troubles.
The first novel for adults from author Brew-Hammond, set in the early 1970s, opens with 22-year-old Kokui Nuga celebrating the Christmas holiday at a hotel in Accra, Ghana. It is there that a server first catches her eye; when she comes back on New Year’s Eve, the two talk, and he introduces himself as Boris Van der Puye, who will soon head to the U.S. to attend a community college in Buffalo, New York. Despite the fact that his days in Ghana are coming to an end, the two date and fall in love, and Kokui also applies, and is accepted to, the school. Kokui’s father, Mawuli, isn’t thrilled with her decision; he wants his daughter to stay and work for his thriving paper company, but Kokui resists: “Leaving her father’s haunted house of disrespected women was the only plan she was clear on.” Her mother, a victim of Mawuli’s frequent philandering who has since moved to Togo, also urges caution, but Kokui and Boris marry and move to the U.S., first staying with Boris’ cousin in Brooklyn, then moving to Buffalo for school. When things start to unravel and Kokui returns to Ghana after her father’s death, she starts to wonder whether she made a mistake, telling her mother that she feels “trapped by him. Like, if I push for something I need or tell him how I truly feel or show him who I truly am, I will spoil everything between us. And he lies, Ma.” Brew-Hammond’s prose and dialogue are workmanlike, but this tale of a garden-variety couple ultimately feels thin.
Brew-Hammond is talented, but there’s just not much here.
"Soul-searching with a pragmatic edge." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Vivid. … Alongside the dynamics of culture, identity, and class, Kokui's journey finely captures the formative shifts and bittersweet revelations of womanhood." — Booklist
"My Parents’ Marriage is a deeply engaging and gratifying novel that deftly explores the generational cycles we are each born into and offers a moving portrait into the joys—and guilt—of finding our own way. I can’t remember the last time I rooted for a character as wholeheartedly as I did for Kokui, a young woman who, having faced shattered illusions around her parents’ union, is determined to shape her life and marriage around truth. Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond’s is a rare talent." — Adrienne Brodeur, author of Little Monsters and Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover and Me
"The marital realities of patriarchy, class, reproduction, culture, and finances are minutely and exquisitely observed in breathlessly tense exchanges I couldn't look away from. Brew-Hammond has crafted an arrestingly evocative story, which, like Dominicana and Brown Girl, Brownstones, dismantles immigrant cliches and delivers powerfully vulnerable moments that show what we can mean to each other. This thought-provoking and intense novel speaks loudly to a universal desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past and urgently reminds us it is in our ordinary lives that we must be extraordinarily brave." — Vanessa Walters, author of The Nigerwife
"My Parent’s Marriage is a thought-provoking and searing examination of how patriarchy can impact marriage customs of all kinds… Through her vibrant, complicated characters, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond explores the downstream effects of a system that benefits a few at the expense of many." — Erica Bauermeister, New York Times-bestselling author of No Two Persons
"Intent on avoiding the same marriage trap her mother falls in, Kokui Nuga goes on a heartfelt journey from the glitz of Accra in the ‘70s to the mystical markets of Togo to freezing New York State. My Parents’ Marriage, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond’s new novel, tackles Ghana’s complicated customary marriage laws with smooth and powerful prose. I couldn’t stop reading it." — Ayesha Harruna Attah, author of The Hundred Wells of Salaga, The Deep Blue Between, Saturday’s Shadows, and Harmattan Rain
"In My Parents' Marriage, Nana Brew-Hammond crafts a moving account about a young woman who, despite familial expectations and divided loyalty, strives to be faithful to the person who matters most—herself. A propulsive read that will take a hold of you with its honesty, determination, and heart." — Melissa Rivero, author of Flores and Miss Paula
"My Parents' Marriage is a wonderful tale of the complicated nature of family and how we so often seek our independence from our parents while being caught within the folds of their life choices—for good or bad. Kokui grips our hearts as we root for her to find her way in the world without letting her grief overshadow her light. Can any of us live an authentic life free of the hurt from our parents—Nana Brew-Hammond explores that question in an outstanding narrative of love, grief, family, and womanhood." — Keisha Bush, author of No Heaven for Good Boys
