The Housemaid by Amma Darko

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

I'm going to quote from the back cover because I'm not good at summaries: A provocative portrayal of modern life in Ghana. A dead baby and bloodstained clothes are discovered near a small village. Everyone is ready to comment on the likely story behind the abandoned infant. The man have one opinion, the women another. As the story rapidly unfolds it becomes clear that seven different women played their part in the drama. All of them are caught in a web of superstition, ignorance, greed and corruption.

This book is basically all about the women. They're the ones who drive the story, it's told from their POV, and the male characters are almost insignificant. The women include a businesswoman, a street girl, a grandmother, two mothers, two daughters, a teacher, and the housemaid of the title. I thought seeing Ghana from all their different points of view was fascinating, and I loved the interwovenness of the story.

It's not a mystery in the conventional sense. 'Who' is revealed, I think, about half-way through. It then moves onto the why, which isn't what I first expected. I did like that, though: at the beginning of the book, various men were giving explanations as to why a mother would abandon her child (and calling for her to be hung, or to have her womb cut out and fed to her), and of course the true reason turned out to be far more complex. The ending is quite vague. It's never really revealed what happens to the mother, although it's hinted at.

I would definitely recommend this. It's short (only about 110 pages) but powerful, and I know I'm going to end up reading it again.