Book Review: The Parlour Wife by Foluso Agbaje

The Parlour Wife is short and you could finish it in an afternoon. The writing is also easy to read and unpretentious.

Along with a captivating cover, this book promises a story of a daring woman living in colonial Nigeria.

And that is all it does. It promises things but hardly ever delivers them.

Kehinde is a young woman whose marriage to an older man sets the stage for a story about finding herself on her own terms, or so the synopsis promises.

This book fails on character development. Kehinde does not quite fit the commonly told story of a young woman forced into marriage for her family’s benefit. The synopsis speaks of her putting everything on the line to find herself, but this is the opposite of what she does for most of the book.

Kehinde lets things happen to her over and over again, while at the same time harbouring strong dreams. That disconnect was exhausting to read.

Underdeveloped Characters

Her family is similarly underdeveloped. Her parents do not initially appear to be traditional, which makes their later actions seem inconsistent with how we understood them. The only exceptions are her twin brother and, perhaps, her mother, who both feel more grounded in the story.

Kehinde’s husband is another missed opportunity.

We are expected to accept him as the villain simply because he marries an eighteen-year-old, and Kehinde tells us so. That is not enough.

Positive Aspects of the Book

Where the book does succeed is in its portrayal of colonial Nigeria. It is not a deep portrait, but it does illuminate the important economic role women played during that period, and that alone gives the story some weight.

The writing is also easy to read and unpretentious. The Parlour Wife is short, and you could finish it in an afternoon.

As a reader, I could not help but compare it to Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, purely because of the shared wartime setting. I know that is not entirely fair, but the comparison lingered.

I rate this book 3 out of 5. If you are looking for a light read set in an interesting historical moment and are not too invested in character depth, it’s worth your afternoon.