I put off reading this book for some reason, a big mistake because I really liked it, one of the best and most interesting reads about the African American/American African experience. The narrator, Ifemelu, is a young women who grows up in Lagos, Nigeria. The novel begins, however, in a hair braiding and straightening parlor in Newark, where Ifemelu goes, to have her hair braided because she has decided to give up her work as a popular blogger in the States, and return to Nigeria after a hiatus of many years.
As she gets her hair braided, she then goes back in time, to her life growing up in Nigeria, as a teenager, the family that surrounds her, the various despotic governments that often shape the families lives, and the teen age love of her life, Obinze. When she graduates from high school, she wins a scholarship to a college in the US and at Obinze's urging, she decides to go, which begins her odyssey in America, where for the first time, she realizes she is black.
Growing up in Nigeria, color is not an issue, but in the US, it is. We see her struggle to acclimatize her Nigeria upbringing in a different culture and what's most interesting, she finds herself alienated for a time from the African American community as well because it's so different from her African community, with different sets of customs, beliefs, even religions. She struggles to find a job, eventually landing one as a nanny for a Mom in a very upscale community. She works when needed, , goes to school, makes friends, and begins blogging on life in the US from the dual point of view of an African American and American African. Eventually, because of her ties to the family as a Nanny, she meets the wives's brother, Curt, who falls in love with Ifemelu. He is extraordinarily rich and they become lovers, and he introduces her to an entirely new way of life, upscale apartments, cappuccinos, trips to Paris and London, all things unimaginable a few years ago. And because her blog takes off, she becomes famous, and Princeton offers her a grant, things seem to be going well. Then, consciously, as a matter of revolt, she angers Curt by sleeping with another man. He leaves her, to fend on her own despite her apologizes and half baked excuses.
She finds another apartment, becomes independent and eventually hooks up with a black professor from Yale named Blaine and they live seemingly happy together, Ifemelu finally comfortable with America, the friends that surround a college campus. Then, inexplicably, Efemelu begins to be drawn back to her roots, to Nigeria, feeling somewhat of a sell out by living the good life in the States, ignoring her people and missing Obinze, her teen love.
She decides to return, sells her apartment, ends her blog, but finds it difficult to not only adjust to a culture now foreign to her after having lived for years in the States but it's also difficult to find a decent job, even with her credentials. She eventually finds a job working for a cheesy magazine, reconnects with her friends, but not Obinze. For some reason, she resists meeting him, establishes herself, begins a modern blog, which becomes successful and then seems ready to reconnect with Obinze. They begin where they left off, great friends, and slowly their love is rekindled even though he has a wife and a child. They both fight this passion, decide to leave well enough alone, that it's too much to expect they can live together. The novel ends with Obinze, at her door, and she opens it and lets him in.
This book has opened my eyes more than any other to what it's like to be black in the US, how different American Africans are even though they, too, would be clumped together with African Americans because they are black. We too easily make assumptions about Blacks without evidence, other than color
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