The Rigors of Female Friendship

Over the past few years, my foray into African literature has been growing. I have been able to host African Literature Month which made me explore worlds I didn’t before. One driver for this is my venture – without design – into Nigerian literature. It all started with Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart back in 2016; it repeatedly appeared on must-read lists. Through the Booker Prize, I came across Ben Okri. His Booker Prize-winning novel, The Famished Road provided me insights into certain aspects of Nigerian culture and society. A couple of years later, I got introduced to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie whose Half of a Yellow Sun further provided me insight into contemporary Nigerian history.

Without design, my foray into Nigerian literature only kept expanding, especially during the pandemic. I read the works of Buchi Emecheta and Nobel Laureate in Literature, Wole Soyinka. I was also introduced to up-and-coming writers such as Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ and Akwaeke Emezi. I was mesmerized by their debut novels, Stay With Me and Freshwater, respectively. It is also the reason why I obtained Adébáyọ̀’s latest novel, A Spell of Good Things which was recently announced as part of the 2023 Booker Prize longlist. The Booker Prize did play a seminal role in introducing me to other Nigerian writers such as Oyinkan Braithwaite and Chigozie Obioma. I am sure that as I dive deeper into Nigerian, and by extension, African literature, I will encounter more Nigerian writers.

Staying true to this, I came across Nikki May in early 2022 when I was looking for books to include in my 2022 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. Her novel, Wahala, was listed in similar lists. This was enough to convince me to add the book to my own list. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain a copy of the book last year; I was never successful in completing all the books on my own list. Thankfully, I found a copy of the book this year. Since I already have a copy of the book, including Wahala in my August 2023 African Literature Month seemed the most logical step. This further underlined how Nigerian literature is growing up on me.

“When you’ve wasted your life on a string of losers who treat you like shit! You’ve never had a real relationship. You don’t understand how they work. You have no idea of the sacrifices I’ve had to make. No two people have the same dream. My career matters. My freedom matters. You really think Kayode is the one? You’re stupid! Deluded.’ Simi didn’t realize she’d been shouting till she stopped. The noisy men had fallen silent and were staring. Even the waiter looked attentive.”

~ Nikki May, Wahala

May’s debut novel, Wahala was set in contemporary London where the readers were introduced to three female friends. Already in their mid-thirties, they were Anglo-Nigerians with white English mothers and Nigerian fathers. Their friendship developed when they crossed paths at a university in Bristol seventeen years prior to the present. The parallels in their backgrounds and their experiences growing up with mixed heritage in modern Britain gave them a common denominator to bond. They have become each other’s support systems and despite the passage of time, their bond remained intact. They have become an integral and constant presence in each other’s lives: “They had celebrated all their milestones together – first jobs, promotions, break-ups, engagements, weddings – they should share this too.”

The first of the three women was Simi. She was born to an affluent family but fell from grace after her father lost his business. Simi dropped out of her college degree, against her father’s wishes – it was a contentious point in their already shaky relationship – and eventually became a fashion marketer in which she found a semblance of success and belongingness. Her father, however, still downplayed her career. Nevertheless, Simi found stability and comfort in her marriage with Martin. With Martin working and stationed in New York City, the couple had to navigate the complexities of a long-term relationship. The couple was childless although Martin had been pressing his wife to for them to have one; time, after all, was ticking.

Like Simi, Bukola, or Boo for short – she hated her real name – was already married. Her husband, Didier, was a Frenchman. But unlike Simi and Martin, Boo and Didier were parents to a five-year-old daughter named Sofia. Before Sofia’s birth, Boo used to work as a research scientist, a job for which she had a passion for. Parenthood turned her into a mundane housewife. Completing the female trio was Ronke. She was born to a family of humble origins but has risen above the ranks and has now become a successful dentist. Of the three friends, Ronke was the one who valued her Nigerian roots the most. She also limited her dating prospects to Nigerian men. Unlike her friends, Ronke was not married but in a relationship with Kayode.

Breaking into their midst was Isobel Babangari. Like the three main characters, had a mixed heritage; her mother was Russian while her father was Nigerian with vast wealth and influence. Everything about Isobel was bigger than life. She was baked up by a large trust fund. She had her own personal security detail. She wore expensive articles of clothing. Born with a silver spoon, her future is anything but assured. She was also Simi’s childhood friend; Ronke and Boo, however, never heard of her until she casually walked into their life through their common connection. What the friends did not expect was the way that Isobel would alter the dynamics of their friendship.

“What to wear for the lunch? She wanted to look professional, but not Hillary Clinton formidable. Attractive, but not Kim Kardashian slutty. Amal Clooney got it right – warm and sophisticated. But while they might be a similar height, Amal weighed half as much as Boo and had a billion times her budget.”

~ Nikki May, Wahala

The stability of their friendship was about to get tested by Isobel. She was cunning and manipulative. Her opulent veneer obscured a mind filled with conceit. She was suffering from a major main character syndrome; she wanted to monopolize all the attention. But she was also charming and it didn’t take long for her to earn the trust of Simi and Boo. Ronke proved to be the hardest shell to crack. She was also a notorious gossip who had the compunction to create scenarios that would destabilize the bond of the three friends. Isobel knew how to play her cards right. She also knew where to hit the three friends the hardest.

Individually, Simi, Boo, and Ronke had their own concerns. They had their own secrets, some they kept from each other and even their partners. Martin wanted a child but the idea of having children simply did not appeal to Simi. Simi lacked motherly instincts. Simi was also suffering from the impostor syndrome, both at home and at work. Boo, on the other hand, was bored with being a housewife. She wanted to work again in order to have some semblance of excitement in her life. Ronke, on the other hand, had to deal with a string of toxic and abusive boyfriends. Kayode seemed to provide the stability she wanted, except that he was unreliable. It comes as no surprise that her friends did not like Kayode. More secrets were unveiled as the story moved forward.

Just like any other secrets, these secrets threaten to undermine the very foundations that make up their friendship. With Isobel’s growing presence in their lives, the three women must confront these individual issues. One issue that they had to grapple with was their daddy issues. Simi was constantly made to feel inadequate by her father because of her chosen field. Her father has also turned into a freeloader but Simi was too weak to voice her concern. Ronke’s father died when she was still eleven. She loved her father so much that she tried to find him in every man she was in a relationship with. Boo never met her father although she knew his name.

The story’s focus on the complexities and intricacies of female bonds and relationships never wavered. We also read about their own insecurities despite the seemingly perfect facade they project. Their struggles make them relatable characters. The novel is largely a female story. Beyond their individual daddy issues and the fathers’ influences on the main characters’ lives, male characters were mainly left on the sideline. Even their white husbands were too good to be true. They were too perfect and too supportive of their wives. They were the antithesis of the absentee Nigerian men in their wives’ lives. It was as if a conciliatory detail to fill in for the role of the missing men.

“You ungrateful little bitch! I treated you like a sister. I took you under my wing, wasted my time and money trying to raise you out of your miserable little life with your fat wimp of a husband and your ugly brat of a child. I should have known better. You’re nothing. Just another coconut bastard. I wish you unluck for the rest of your pathetic life.”

~ Nikki May, Wahala

Wahala toggles between the different women’s stories. We read about their quotidian lives. This makes for a compelling character study, with May underlining the thin line of tensions and judgments that oftentimes undermine even the strongest bonds. As jealousies and personal resentments rise to the fore, one can’t help but ask, “Who is the real friend and who is the impostor?” Despite the alternating points of view, there was still a distance between the readers and the characters. Readers were given only glimpses but never the complete psychological profile or interiors of the characters. Isobel, on the other hand, was a monochromatic character. She was the titular Wahala, a Nigerian pidgin for trouble. She was destruction incarnate and a mere caricature.

With the premise alone, one can easily deduce what the story is about. It is a typical story about friendships and betrayal. It was predictable although as one reads the story, one can’t help but hope that there were other sides to the story that would somehow make it stand out. There were also plotholes that undermined the novel. How come no one was able to see through Isobel’s scheming? Almost two decades of friendship and it only takes one malicious character to run it aground. May introduced some subplots that did not move the story forward; a stalker problem was interjected in the story but it was unnecessary in the flow of the story.

Important discussions on colorism and internalized racism were never fully explored. This muted discussion on racism, through a different lens, can be concluded as an emphasis on how some people of color claim that they cannot be racist because they are POCs. Nigeria, meanwhile, was simply used as a backdrop with major concerns that plagued the country, such as corruption and abuse of police power, mentioned offhandedly. May, however, was resplendent in describing Nigerian food. The smell of Nigerian food seduced the olfactory senses. Recipes of some of the food mentioned in the story were provided in the closing pages of the book.

Despite its blunders, Wahala had its bright spots. It was an accessible and compelling study of the complexities and intricacies of female friendship. It was also a story of relationships beyond sisterhood. It tackled family dynamics, interracial relationships, and multicultural identities. It also captured the changing nature of female roles in both the home and the workplace. In their own ways, Simi, Boo, and Ronke were interesting characters who keep the readers’ attention. May did a commendable job of capturing the Black upper-middle-class experience in modern Britain. Overall, Wahala, despite some of its pieces not completely fitting out, was a memorable debut novel that marks the ascent of a new voice.

“Boo had bad memories of being five. She’d been an outsider, wished her hair was straighter, her skin paler, her nose narrower. The only mixed-race girl in a small Yorkshire village – white mum, white stepdad, white stepbrothers. Desperate to fit in. Being inconspicuous had seemed the best way to achieve it.”

~ Nikki May, Wahala
Book Specs

Author: Nikki May
Publisher: Custom House
Publishing Date: 2022
Number of Pages: 371
Genre: Literary

Synopsis

An incisive and exhilarating debut novel following three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and the lethally glamorous fourth woman who infiltrates their group – the most unforgettable girls since Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda.

RONKE wants happily ever after and 2.2 kids. She’s dating Kayode and wants him to be “the one” (perfect, like her dead father). Her friends think he’s just another in a long line of dodgy Nigerian boyfriends.

BOO has everything Ronke wants – kind husband, gorgeous child. But she’s frustrated, unfulfilled, plagued by guilt, and desperate to remember who she used to be.

SIMI is the golden one with the perfect lifestyle. No one knows she’s crippled by impostor syndrome and tempted to pack it all in each time her boss mentions her “urban vibe.” Her husband thinks they’re trying for a baby. She’s not.

When the high-flying, charismatic ISOBEL explodes into the group, it seems at first she’s bringing out the best in each woman. (She gets Simi an interview in Shanghai! Goes jogging with Boo!) But the more Isobel intervenes, the more chaos she sows, and Ronke, Simi and Boo’s close friendship begins to crack.

A sharp, modern take on friendship, ambition, culture and betrayal, Wahala (trouble) is an unforgettable novel from a brilliant new voice.

About the Author

Nikki May was born in Bristol, United Kingdom to parents of different heritages. When she was young, her family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where she was raised. At twenty, she dropped out of medical school and moved to London. In London, she started a career in the advertising industry. She would eventually run her own advertising agency before pursuing a career in literature. In January 2022, her debut novel, Wahala was published. It was longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. The novel is about to be adapted into a BBC TV series.

May is currently residing in Dorset with her husband and their two standard schnauzers.