A review by encounterswiththemoon
The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia

3.0

Spoiler

It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on sexual assault, sexual violence, rape, assaults against a minor & others.
 
This is a story that seeks to evoke an emotive response. Two (2) Nigerian women find themselves, their lives, & their histories, intertwined amidst class & social inequality. I held off writing a review for this book after finishing it because I was ultimately left wanting; something innate in the story was lacking & the time I took was an attempt a pinning down what that aspect was.
 
The environment in which the story takes place, the characters, & truly, the plot in its entirety present important subject matters. Onyemelukwe-Onuobia has nice writing, which enamoured me to continue reading until the end. That being said, this book was easy to become immersed in; regardless of my feelings towards the layout, once I started reading I was on a roll. The introduction allowed the reader to understand that the subject matter would be sensitive & would require them to be in the right mindset to read the story. I very much appreciated that.
 
I will not pretend that I am well-versed on Nigeria. When I chose to buy this book it was because I was interested to read about the lives of people who reflected signs of the times in said country. We never see the characters as three-dimensional. By that, I mean that these characters had things happen to them but the story never explores the depths of their consciousness reflected in the decisions they made.

For example, after Nwabulu was raped as a child we hardly see this impact her character development at all. Instead, we read about her relationship with Urenna as being almost stress-free after he told her he would be gentle. Then, we see her have seemingly normal relationships moving forward & none explore the depths of which childhood sexual assault has on a person. I can appreciate that, as is the case very often, one does not have time to ‘wallow’ (for lack of better words) on what has transpired but, the trauma still affects a person.

I felt as though Nwabulu had things happen to her & we simply moved on without revisiting the consequences on her person. That is also not to say that I would have wanted her to have a horrible life. However, everything that we live through affects us in some way, even if very slightly. We view the consequences of having had her first baby stolen from her within her marriage to her husband & the relationship she has with her other children, later in life. We never read about her expressing what it must have been like to live in the area of the city where she was working as a child or what it would have been like to be able to send her children to school; how she felt owning her own books & sharing her love of reading, opening, with others.
 
Even after reading about the past which leads them into the moment in which they find themselves together, sitting in the same room; things transpire very rapidly. The revelation that Julie was the person who raised Nwabulu’s son was so quickly fired off that we were not given the chance to appreciate the gravity of her statement. In the following moment, Julie is unconscious & then the story ends.

I did not appreciate the ending. Having spent so much time with these characters & knowing that I was so close to the end of the book, I nearly gave up finishing. I quickly lost my momentum to care, seeing how few pages remained. I had been curious as to how Onyemelukwe-Onuobia might tie the dual narrators together. Unfortunately, I was not very thrilled with the result.
 
Did Julie die? Would Nwabulu have revealed to the son that she was his biological mother? How is this topic approached in Nigerian culture? What would have happened from a legal standpoint if she had decided to go forward with that, given that Eugene had a vast estate which would have fallen to his ‘biological’ child? Would Nwabulu not care about anything that might be of detriment to the child because she simply wanted to have her son back? I didn’t feel that I knew either of them enough by the end of the story to conclude with any certainty what might happen once they were rescued.
 
All in all, it was an interesting book but, it did feel very surface-level. This is a good example of a book being very pleasing, fulfilling & intriguing to some while others might not connect in any way with the story or the characters so, if you decide to read the story keep in mind that it moves fast, it’s well-written & it is sad. But, there is not much more than that.