One of my favourite things about belonging to the book community is connecting with like-minded readers. In the last few years I have honed in on a number of others bloggers and authors who have very similar taste to mine when it comes to their literary likes, and I know when they adore something, it will absolutely rock my world too. I don’t want to name names (with great power comes great responsibility – and great ego😉) but these folk are entirely responsible for the size of my TBR. So when one of my trusted contacts posted enthusiastically about This Motherless Land by Nikki May, I knew immediately that I would love this novel and needed to beg, steal or borrow to get hold of a copy as soon as I could. I am here to report that my instincts were 100% accurate – this modern re-telling of Mansfield Park is one of the best things I have read this year and I will genuinely be telling everyone I know that they need this in their life immediately. This is writing of the highest calibre.
Meet Funke – the young daughter of an English mother and Nigerian father, living in Lagos in the late 1970s. She is immersed in typical childish pursuits, from fighting her brother for the front seat of the car to beating her best friend in bike races. Then without warning everything changes. Her mother and brother are killed in a tragic accident, and her dad decides to send her to live with the estranged English side of the family in Somerset, instantly turning her whole world upside down. Her aunt greets her with coldness and animosity; her grandparents seem happy to let her slide into silent obscurity as she struggles to process so much loss at such a young age. It is only Liv, her cousin, who makes any attempt to make her feel at home, gradually bringing her out of her shell and teaching her the ways of life in Britain. As they grow into adulthood side by side their connection seems unbreakable, but when catastrophe strikes again, will their friendship survive the pressures of the past?
There is a stunning clarity to May’s prose that had me hooked from very early on. She tackles the stark brutality of human relationships with a skill that took my breath away and I found myself gasping in sympathy for Funke from the very first chapter. Throughout the novel, patriarchal oppression is a key theme – boys have greater worth and therefore are valued more than girls even by their own mothers – and this is amped up ten-fold when race also comes into play. Funke experiences both covert and overt racism from those who are charged with her care, both on a familial and societal level, which is both horrifying and heart-breaking to read.
Whilst primarily This Motherless Land is a reflection on the significance of the mother / child relationship, it is also an incredibly poignant exploration of identity and how complex this can be when you are of mixed heritage, with Funke’s sense that she doesn’t truly belong in either place she could call home. The narrative also plays really cleverly with expectations of England vs Africa in the 1970s: our protagonist is horrified by what she considers the deprivation of life in a British stately home compared to the luxuries she experienced in Nigeria, despite her English family assuming she is “half savage” and should be grateful for all she is being given. I cannot help but think this is the perfect book club read, with so many different themes to unpack and discuss.
Whilst I don’t like to mention it too often (only in every other sentence), I wrote my dissertation on Jane Austen and like to rather egotistically assume I have an insight into her thinking. I genuinely think Jane would wholeheartedly approve of this powerful re-thinking of one of my favourite books. I am going to struggle to pick up another novel as good as this for a while and the literary hangover is real. I implore you to get a hold of this as soon as it is published in a few weeks’ time – it really is one read you don’t want to miss.
Bookaholic Bex 