The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin

Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 280
Challenges: Support Your Local Library #41
Source: Library




The Short Version:
When a Nigerian man adds a fourth wife to his family, the tension mounts and secrets are both kept and revealed.

Why I Read It:
I started watching for this book at the library after reading a preview of it in a Bookbrowse newsletter.

The Book:
Baba Segi is an overweight flatulent and crude Nigerian businessman. Over the years his family has grown to three wives and seven children. When he marries a fourth wife, the balance of power in the marriage has to undergo some adjustments. When two years later this fourth wife, Bolanle has not become pregnant, Baba Segi decides it’s time to take some action.

At the same time the other three wives have continued to let their resentment of this new addition to their family build. As a University graduate, they think Bolanle feels she is better than them, when in actuality Bolanle would prefer to find a peaceful way for the family to learn to live together as a family. When the senior wives decide it’s time to take some action of their own despite the potential for unplanned consequences.

My Thoughts:
I thought this book was intriguing. I had been warned ahead of time that the point of view shifts were not always clear so I was prepared ahead of time for that. I think that helped. While some of the chapters are labeled as to who is speaking, that is not the case in most of them. Often I had to read a few paragraphs of a new chapter to figure out whose point of view it was, and then go back and start the page again. That made for some breaks in the flow and transition for me, but I think having been prepared ahead of time I wasn’t totally irked by it.

It was interesting to read a story of a polygamous family that was not the typical FDLS-like group set in North America. The setting in Nigeria and the cultural background of the story were fascinating to me.

As each of the wives story was revealed their varied reasons for marrying Baba Segi in the first place were very moving. That they each gradually reveal their histories I found myself both disliking them and feeling sympathy for what they’d been through all at the same time. I cannot relate to being in a situation where making some of the choices these women made (nor going along with choices made by others for them) is the only real way to go on. The varying secrets and backstories are in some ways predictable, and the outcome didn’t really come as a surprise to me. I read with a certain sense of detachment, though and never felt like any of the characters was wholly sympathetic.

In some ways the stories made me think back to the play “Ruined” by Lynn Nottage which we saw this past summer. That play explores the awful ways that some women in the war torn country of The Congo have to manage to survive. While Baba Segi’s wives are not in the same circumstances as the women Lynn Nottage wrote about in Ruined, they are still forced to make some decisions and keep secrets in order to find a sense of security and stability.

It was a quick read and I was glad I knew before starting it that figuring out who was telling each chapter might be difficult to determine, because in some cases it was. I liked it though and felt it was an interesting look at an unfamiliar setting and culture.


Rating 4/5