Novels No. 8 (LL326)

 

Oyinkan Braithwaite. My Sister, the Serial Killer. 2018. New York: Anchor Books, 2019.

Korede is a nurse in a Lagos hospital. She is secretly in love with the oblivious Dr. Tade Otumu. Korede is a caring professional who puts up with the laziness or highjinks of her fellow nurses Yinka, Bunmin, and Chichi. Being firstborn, she was always expected to be responsible for her gorgeous younger sister Ayoola. In fact when we first meet Korede, she is cleaning up the bathroom where Ayoola just stabbed her boyfriend Femi to death. With their father's treasured, antique knife. Korede is a very responsible sister.

It's not the first time, alas. Ayoola took to using the knife on two previous boyfriends. It's just as well their abusive father died years ago. Apparently she takes issue with something the men did, but she's rather vague about self-defence. Ayoola knows her sister will always protect her over and above any other considerations, besides cleaning up the messes and helping dump bodies off a bridge into the sea. So far they've avoided any sniff of suspicion. But Femi's family does not accept that he merely walked away without contacting them; they publicize his disappearance far and wide. Anxious Korede has absolutely nowhere, no one, to turn to, as her doubts and guilt build (not so Ayoola, who carries on like a sociopath, designing clothing and modelling it on social media). At work, Korede finds some solace and safety in recounting her stress factors to Muhtar, a comatose, terminal patient.

Here comes trouble, of course. Tade is smitten when he meets Ayoola; Muhtar wakes unexpectedly from his coma and remembers everything. Police appear. Korede has not been successful in discreetly trying to warn Tade away from a bad ending. Yet we glimpse how Ayoola's young brain was imprinted. Family, loyalty, love ... you have to read it to marvel at the precision of each sentence, so much said in so few words. My Sister is a work of literary art: find it.

One-liners

▪ #FemiDurandIsMissing has gone viral. (22)

▪ Is it mere coincidence that Ayoola has never had a mark on her, from any of these incidents with these men; not even a bruise? (23)

▪ "The knife is important to me, Korede." (36)

▪ It is a mystery how much feeling Ayoola is even capable of. (36)

▪ Is there anything more beautiful than a man with a voice like an ocean? (48-9)

▪ She examines me to see if I already believe she is a sorry excuse for a human being. (77)

▪ "Ayoola, you better send this man on his way, or I swear I'll—" (112)

▪ But she doesn't love him and for some reason he is blind to that fact; or he doesn't care. (133)

▪ He is probably wondering what a nurse is doing making herself comfortable at his father's bedside, tracing the rim of an empty cup with her finger. (175-6)

Multi-liners

▪ "I didn't know you had a sister?" He is talking to me, but his eyes never leave hers. (54)

▪ A bouquet of violently bright orchids is delivered to our house. For Ayoola. (75)

▪ My sister is in the wrong profession. She should be in front of the camera, with the lights framing her innocence. (100)

▪ "You know nothing about me, or the woman you are about to propose to. And by the way, Ayoola would never wear a ring less than three carats." (166)

▪ I am more haunted by her actions than she is. We may have escaped punishment, but our hands are no less bloody. (179)

▪ One could hardly consider him a father. He was the law in our home. (184)

Shari Lapena. Everyone Here is Lying. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2023.

Lapena's latest requires a cast list of the two families (and a few more) involved in a disaster that blooms from one private incident to an explosive public cloud. Nora and Al Blanchard live on a pretty street in suburban New York. Their kids are Ryan (18) and Faith (11). On the same street live Erin and Dr. William Wooler with their offspring Michael (12) and Avery (9). Avery's occasional playmate Jenna has a brother Derek (15); their parents are Alice and Peter Seton. Another boy, same neighbourhood, is Adam Winter (15). Now that we're all on the same page: the domestic drama begins with Nora telling William that she's ending their secret affair that takes place Tuesday afternoons in a motel; she can't continue to risk scandal.

William is deeply upset, believing they really love each other. He goes home with unruly feelings, finds daughter Avery there—alone, which is not allowed. In anger he strikes her for being kicked out of her choir practice, for not waiting at school for her brother to accompany her, for lying. Instantly ashamed, he apologizes and drives away. Subsequently Avery—their disruptive, ADHD, difficult child—disappears completely. Police and search parties with detectives Bledsoe and Gully spring into action. No one has seen her. The fallout affects every individual mentioned. William is under suspicion; boys in the neighbourhood are fingered as potential kidnappers. Turns out the adult affair was not a secret to some. As time goes by with no Avery, two families are in ruins, believing she's dead; different individuals blame themselves for something they could have done, should have done, to change the course of events.

The characters move the narrative in turn. Lapena knows what she's doing when it comes to domestic drama. Unbearable emotions raised by child missing, presumed dead, spread exponentially like dominoes falling, crashing, exploding into each other—and severing family bonds. Everyone suffers. Tragedy can be the only outcome from humanity's worst kinds of behaviour. This is a masterpiece for Lapena.

Bits

▪ His daughter has a history of telling lies. He does, too, but his wife doesn't know that. (21)

▪ No one ever tells you how complicated it is being a parent. How much energy it sucks out of you. (28)

▪ William can't find his voice; it's as if he's paralyzed. The opportunity passes. (32)

▪ Erin is more progressive, more patient; he's old school and flies off the handle. (88)
▪ "Who is she?" his mother asks, her voice so full of venom it's almost unrecognizable. (114)

▪ Alice hesitates and then says, "There's that boy down the street." (118)

▪ The grief and guilt are becoming too much for her to bear. She hadn't protected her daughter. (162)

▪ This is what he has wrought. His wife has lost her mind. (182)

▪ They need to find Avery. And every hour she is missing is making people around here become more unhinged. (196)

▪ "I never touched her. Why do you believe Michael over me?" (202)

▪ He thinks about what his wife said, how she thinks he's a child killer. (295)

▪ She's not going to recant her statement to the police. Not now. (294)