Stanley: The Unveiling by Mary Rotibi

A lot can happen in five weeks. I mean life-altering situations, like being a widow one minute and getting married the next.

What if Cupid didn’t come as an angel with a bow, but as a dead husband, a multimillion-naira company, and a widow locked into a contract?

That’s the question Stanley: The Unveiling by Mary Rotibi throws at you from page one, and it never lets go. If you want romance, suspense, grief, intrigue, undercover agents, and the kind of power that a good name and plenty of money in your account can buy, this is it.

Synopsis

A year after her husband Tony’s death, May is still learning how to breathe again when his will delivers a shock: Stanley, Tony’s closest friend, must marry her within five weeks or lose everything Tony built.

Before either of them can make sense of it, her son Junior vanishes, pulling Stanley into a search that puts him in far more danger than he bargained for.

As the clock on Tony’s condition keeps ticking, May is forced to face grief, guilt, and a love she never expected to feel again, all while secrets from the past threaten to unravel everything.

Literary Technique

Mary Rotibi used two very powerful writing techniques that I personally love. While she used several other techniques, I will highlight four—two of which are among my favourites. They include:

1. The Rotating Close-Third POV

Rotating close-third POV means the narration stays tucked inside one character’s mind at a time, seeing only what they see, feeling only what they feel, but the “one character” changes as the book moves between chapters. It’s intimate rather than distant. We’re not watching from above; we’re behind one set of eyes, then another’s. For example, for a whole chapter we get access to Stanley’s mind, his pain, his grief, his shock, etc.

2. The Title Serving as a Double Meaning 

The title does a lot of heavy lifting and can be interpreted in many ways. Yet whichever theory you end up picking as the main theme of the unveiling, it still fits perfectly. For some, the unveiling could be the removal of the bride’s veil at the altar. For others, it could be the unveiling of secrets, and for some, it could be the unveiling of Tony’s will. Either way, the title of the unveiling is both literal and figurative. 

3. Posthumous Narrative

This is an amazing literary technique that gives the dead room to tell us their thoughts on the matter or their POV. It was brilliantly used to show us how Tony really felt about his wife, after dropping bits and pieces throughout the book.

4. The Use of  Seamless Flashbacks  

Mary Rotibi uses this technique to make the letter the trigger for the flashback. This moves the letter from a mere piece of paper to a physical manifestation of Stanley’s grief. She also uses the letter to avoid the formal transitions associated with flashbacks; instead, she creates a temporal fluidity. That grants us access to Stanley’s psychological reality, where a memory becomes so vivid and intrusive that the walls of his office effectively melt away. 

The Book’s Themes 

The unveiling exposes us to different themes worth discussing but, above all, relatable to today’s society. Some of these themes include: 

1. Grief

This was one of the major themes used in this book. We see grief through the Lens of May, Stanley, and the whole family. We learn that grief has different stages and appears in different ways. Sometimes grief pulls us towards the wrong person in search of comfort, while other times it comes with regrets that eat deep, making us question just about everything. 

In the unveiling, we see grief doing an interesting tango with guilt and exploring the human ideology of grief and how guilt can be a by-product of grief. 

2. Love 

Another anchor in the unveiling is love; Mary Rotibi takes us on a journey to see different kinds of love. The kind that borders on the line of obsession, the possessive yet provision-based kind of love, the patient, steady love, and lastly the kind of love that survives betrayals and chooses to stay despite having numerous reasons to leave. 

3. Second Chances 

This book unveils a world where second chances are given to everyone who desires them and walks toward them. From May to Poju, who is given the chance to change his life and steer it in the right direction. From being a gang member to becoming a Red Cross volunteer in a Red Cross camp. Or a second chance at love. In all, we see the characters embrace this new beginning filled with hope.

4. Secret 

This was another major theme explored in this book. For every crisis or every turn of events in this book, they are all birthed from the well of secrets. Like vines, these secrets were numerous: a secret identity, a secret will, and secret photographs. The whole story is built around different secrets, but as we all know, with every secret lies a truth that pulls down the beautifully built house of secrets. 

Storytelling

What if a lot can happen in five weeks? I mean a life-altering situation, like being a widow one minute and being married to another person the next. 

Meet Stanley, who has five weeks to make his best friend’s widow his wife, or else lose the company. In those same five weeks, his best friend’s son is kidnapped, and he has to move heaven and earth to find him.

When he does, he finds Junior at death’s door and again pulls strings to get the best help he needs, while he still has to inform May, Tony’s widow, of the will.

Oh, still in this short time, he is also kidnapped, tortured, but saved by someone society had already written off as a vagabond; all these and more happen while his time ticks away.

Will these five weeks expose a years-long, deeply rooted secret with vines that connect everyone, with or without their knowledge? 

Verdict 

If you’re like me, a romantic who wants a book loaded with suspense, undercover agents, and secrets aired live like an 8 pm news update, this is for you.

Stanley: The Unveiling leaves you questioning your beliefs on grief and forgiveness. It unveils thought-provoking, unaddressed issues in society.