A review by bisexualbookshelf
The Edge of Water by Olufunke Grace Bankole

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book will be released on February 4, 2025 from Tin House Books in the US.

Olufunke Grace Bankole’s The Edge of Water is a lush and haunting intergenerational saga that explores the tension between fate and self-determination, weaving the lives of three Nigerian women across continents and decades. Esther, her daughter Amina, and her granddaughter Laila navigate the weight of tradition, migration, and survival, their stories punctuated by the voice of Iyanifa, an Ifa priestess who serves as a guide. With lyrical prose and a deeply introspective narrative, Bankole crafts a tale that is at once intimate and expansive, honoring the resilience of women who forge their own paths despite the burdens of history.

The novel opens with Esther’s teenage years in Ibadan, where a traumatic event binds her to a life she did not choose. Forced into marriage with Sani after he assaults her, Esther loses her first child, endures years of abuse, and eventually escapes with her daughter Amina. Their journey is marked by struggle and perseverance, as Esther builds a life from the ground up, finding stability in her catering business while clinging to the hope of a different future for Amina. But even as Esther breaks free from one set of constraints, she cannot help but impose others—her pragmatism shaping the expectations she places on her daughter.

Amina, ever the dreamer, sees America as an escape, a place where she might carve out an identity beyond the rigid expectations of marriage and duty. Yet, even as she reaches for independence, disillusionment follows. Bankole captures the painful complexities of migration—the promise of reinvention shadowed by struggle. Amina’s reunion with Joseph, the man her mother once loved, and the birth of her daughter, Laila, offer glimpses of hope, but the devastation of Hurricane Katrina alters the course of their lives. The novel does not flinch in its portrayal of loss
, particularly as Amina’s life is claimed by the chaos of the storm, leaving Laila to be raised in the fragments left behind
.

What sets The Edge of Water apart is its fluid, almost ethereal storytelling, where the past and present blur, and fate lingers as an omnipresent force. Bankole’s prose is rich with sensory detail, evoking the smell of Nigerian markets, the weight of humid New Orleans air, the ache of longing that stretches across oceans. The interludes from Iyanifa offer a spiritual and philosophical dimension, grounding the novel in Yoruba cosmology and the unbreakable ties between the living and the ancestors.

At its heart, this is a novel about the choices women make in the face of societal constraints, about the dreams that persist despite hardship, and the legacy of love and sacrifice that travels through generations. Bankole does not offer easy resolutions—Esther’s faith in destiny is both vindicated and complicated, Amina’s independence is both triumphant and tragic. But in the novel’s closing moments, as Laila returns to Nigeria to meet her grandmother, there is a sense of continuity, of a story still unfolding.

I was slightly disoriented at the start, but once I reached Part 2, I could not put it down. The Edge of Water is a stunning meditation on migration, motherhood, and fate; I was surprised by how much I loved this one and can’t recommend it enough to fans of diverse literary fiction!

📖 Recommended For: Fans of intergenerational family sagas, lyrical and introspective prose, and narratives exploring migration and identity; readers interested in Yoruba spirituality, mother-daughter relationships, and the complexities of diaspora; lovers of Akwaeke Emezi or Yaa Gyasi.

🔑 Key Themes: Fate vs. Self-Determination, Cultural Heritage and Diaspora, Motherhood and Inheritance, Faith and Spirituality, Survival and Resilience.
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