Butter Honey Pig Bread

4.5

This novel made me so hungry!! It should have come with a recipe book as a bonus. But flippancy aside, it is a well crafted novel which intertwines the stories of two Nigerian and their mother across decades and around the world.
The shifting timelines are deftly woven creating anticipation without causing confusion. The characters are realistic and flawed and, by the end, I genuinely cared how they fared. An excellent debut novel.

What a drop-dead gorgeous debut!

This is a sensual love letter to our time before Covid. Where you could cook dinner for a stranger with the promise of something more. Where people could still traverse the globe, hopping from Lagos to Halifax and France. Quaint cafes invited close conversation over the steaming scent of tea and restaurants didn't reflexively evoke notions of failing hole-in-the-walls, roped off booths to maintain social distancing, and waitresses wearing facemasks and shields to take your order while you ponder viral loads and aerosol particles.

Here is catfish vindaloo, kimchi stew with pork belly, salted caramel chocolate cake, puff-puff, empanadas, overripe plantains, and egusi soup filling up your senses. This is musical prose that envelopes you. And much like the character Kambirinachi in the story, this is about wanting to live.

You see, Kambirinachi is an ogbanje - a spirit so tied to the other world they are born into ours only to die in moments, leaving anguish and tears in their wake. But Kambirinachi wants to live. She raises twin girls Kehinde and Taiye who are torn apart through horrifying trauma. After nearly a decade apart, the family finds their way home to Lagos.

From the small Canadian independent Arsenal Pulp Press, it's nonetheless an absolute crime this isn't getting broader acclaim. This book should be invoked when speaking of Yaa Gyasi, Bernardine Evaristo and dare I say, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Don't sleep on this one!