“Even imagine you are the type that enjoys it all,” she says. Belinda encourages her to create an alter ego who loves the work, to give her a name and imagine herself in this woman’s skin. She advises Mary to do the same when the girl complains about the drudgery of her domestic chores. Belinda does not have the luxury of a fixed identity – she must adapt herself to every new household, so she makes herself as amenable as she can to the initially stony Amma, using different tactics and personas to appeal to her.
He is particularly good at shining a light on the loneliness in Belinda’s life and the psychological games she plays to navigate her unsettled sense of self. It pays off and he inhabits their heads and hearts convincingly. Belinda also bonds with Amma’s mother, Nana, through their shared memories of Ghana, despite their generational and class differences.ĭonkor works as a teacher and it takes a certain courage for a London-born, male author to write from the points of view of girls and women from Ghana. Although Belinda is Amma’s age, the cultural difference poses a seemingly unbridgeable divide (when Amma listens to Radiohead, for example), yet they come to learn from each other and connect.
Belinda’s camaraderie with Mary is beautifully depicted, right up to its tragic end. The focus is on the love that flows between women and the need for Belinda to find a place that feels like homeĭonkor, who was chosen earlier this year as one of the Observer’s best debut novelists of 2018, also puts female friendship at the book’s core.
Donkor, who came out to his family in his 20s, has said it is “kind of un-Ghanaian” to be openly gay, and here, Amma’s story illuminates the cultural taboos around homosexuality, while Belinda’s character reveals both her own secret shame and hostile judgment of Amma. While this remains an undercurrent in the novel, it is female sexuality that is at the fore. She accepts her move uncomplainingly, but however kindly she is treated by the Otuo family in London – they do not want her to cook or clean, and encourage her to concentrate on her education – their self-serving decision to uproot her, purely to be a pet maid to the seemingly spoilt Amma, creates an underlying unease. The novel does not address issues around domestic servitude head-on, although we are shown the emotional fallout of Belinda’s forced displacement from a household, and a continent.
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