“My number one rule, whenever I was hosting, was that women should not serve their husband’s food. That always brought a reaction from the [guests],” recounts Enitan, the strong-willed protagonist in Sefi Atta’s debut novel Everything Good Will Come. It is one of many observations typifying the central theme of Atta’s book, a social commentary on gender politics. Beginning in the seventies, and set in the backdrop of Nigeria’s turbulent military era, this coming-of-age story trails Enitan’s middle class existence from preteen to her thirties as she questions, resists, mocks, and conforms to gender norms.

Raised as an only child, Enitan maintains a close relationship with her liberal father but is scared of her stern mother who, in a misguided attempt to cure Enitan’s younger brother of sickle cell disease, “renounced Anglicanism and herself” in favour of a religious cult.

Though Enitan’s mother’s idea of sex education consists of describing menstruation as “unclean” and sex “a filthy act”, Sherri—her adventurous and precocious preteen neighbour—offers an unvarnished, if not brazen study. “Sex… Banana into tomato. Don’t you know about it?” she says to an astonished Enitan before lending her a mirror to view her crotch.

Enitan keeps her budding friendship with Sherri a secret because of her rascal ways, meeting only when her parents were out. But when Sherri is rape, and her abortion and subsequent hospitalisation become news, Enitan’s parents put an end to their rapport.

Every phase and relationship in Enitan’s life captures society’s attempts to keep women in their place. The old man who guards the female hostel from male visitors is the “keeper of graduate vaginas.” Enitan’s husband tells her to watch her tongue when his family visits to avoid their calling him weak, even though he urges her to speak up at work. Even Enitan’s father, who bills himself a supporter of women’s liberation can’t escape the long arm of patriarchy. While he encourages a young Enitan to join the debating society and not the girl’s guides, calling them “nothing but kitchen martyrs in the making,” as an adult he cautions her about hanging out with her boyfriend unchaperoned. “He might think you’re easy. Cheap,” he says.

Enitan’s feminist streak would materialise during her nine-year stay in the UK, where she goes to complete her secondary and tertiary education. There, she discards the notion that Sherri’s brashness justified her rape and learns from a boyfriend that her virginity is hers to do with as she pleases. Upon her return to Nigeria, Enitan reunites with Sheri and is surprised that her friend is content with being a mistress. She later chalks it up to the fact that Sherri’s beauty and men’s willingness to remunerate it with material comforts have kept her from being ambitious.  

Although Everything Good Will Come is heavy on gender politics, it seamlessly incorporates everyday life in 70s, 80s and 90s Lagos in a manner that strongly anchors readers to place and time: a mother sucking snort from her baby’s nose; a Muslim family’s Sallah preparation; a firing squad broadcast on TV. Also reflected in novel are Nigerian culture and family dynamics as depicted when Enitan’s mother advises her to apologise for calling her father a liar because doing so is taboo and in the scene where Sheri boasts about her younger ones calling her “Sister Sheri”.

Despite its bold and witty take on gender and class inequality, there were times, especially towards the end of novel, where it seemed the author’s views are being tacked on Enitan, leading to meanders such as when Enitan rails about Westerners loving “our animals more than Africans” and how African authors have to explain Africa in their works. These long monologues if expunged, would have resulted in a crisper and tighter narration. Still, Everything Good Will Come is gratifyingly refreshing in the manner it picks apart traditions and structures that have conspired to keep women (and men) bound to social constructs.

A version of this review appeared in the Jun-Aug edition of Inzozi, Rwandair's in-flight magazine.

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