A Jane Austen retelling that actually has something new to say

Loosely based mostly on Jane Austen’s most explicitly political and critically controversial novel, “Mansfield Park,” Nikki Might’s “This Motherless Land” explores clashes of customized and sophistication in a contentious Nigerian and English household.

Organized round 4 pivotal moments within the lives of two cousins — one Nigerian-born and biracial, the opposite English-born and white — this drama from Might, who additionally wrote “Wahala,” exposes how household ties each bind and divide. In 1978, 10-year outdated Funke Oyenuga lives a snug life in suburban Lagos together with her ethereal, inventive English mom, her proud, mental father, and her annoying youthful brother, Femi. Their superstitious and disapproving family members, Femi’s knack for dominating household consideration, and Funke’s standing as a lady in a spot the place boys are favored are her best annoyances. Then out of the blue, an oil tanker shatters her world with the power of a twister. In a blink, her mom and brother are useless, her father is a ineffective mess and Funke is shipped to England to stay together with her mom’s household, whom she’d by no means recognized.

Like Fanny Value, on the age of 10, Funke Oyenuga turns into a displaced youngster on the mercy of better-off family members, who consider themselves merely as her superiors. Not like Austen’s Fanny, Funke is brown, and that brings its personal issues among the many aristocratic and lily-white Stones of Somerset, who carry misplaced delight in long-past glory. As Funke realizes, “She’d been fed a pack of lies. England wasn’t a fairy-tale land of a lot and these folks weren’t wealthy. The home was run-down and worn out — holes within the rugs, squeaky flooring, ramshackle furnishings.”

It’s a impolite and, in Might’s deft arms, extremely particular, well-observed cultural awakening. Within the novel’s first part, which takes place when Funke is younger, every thing she thought she knew about England seems to be flawed and she or he’s handled like a second-class citizen in her family. Amid disappointing circumstances, one of the best a part of this new life is the enthusiastic embrace of her cousin Olivia, or Liv. The women’ bond is instinctual and, at the very least for Liv, unbridled. Crude cousin Dominic, Liv’s brother, is one other story — he calls Funke “Zebra.” And their mom, Aunt Margot, is racist and resentful of Funke’s skills, which recall Funke’s useless mom.

Racism lives on a spectrum on this unusual new land, and it’s handled principally as a pervasive but private failing. Even Liv appears at Funke — whom the Stones finally name by her extra British and socially acceptable center identify, Kate — like she’s an unique creature: “Kate was the primary Black individual Liv had obtained up shut and private with.” To Liv’s thoughts, “The largest shock was how peculiar she was. Secretly, Liv had hoped her cousin could be half savage. She’d conjured up a wild, ferocious creature, jet black with beads in her hair, hefty and robust, a ravishing however horrifying lioness.”

Nonetheless, in the end, regardless of relegating her to the attic of the Stones’ crumbling property like the assistance, everybody however Dominic and Margot warms to the gifted, hardworking Funke. Later, as Funke acclimates, it’s more and more clear that Liv and all the Stones have their very own crosses to bear, not the least of which is the consistently vital and undermining Margot. Though their luster has lengthy since pale, the Stone household identify remains to be illustrious (the grandfather, Lord Stone, was as soon as Residence Secretary). And that, the socially formidable Margot won’t ever let go.

An interesting, malevolent power whose unquenchable wishes poison every thing round her, Margot takes sibling rivalry and standing anxiousness to the brink of insanity. Margot is obsessed together with her dwindling privilege and the valor she thinks her sister Lizzie, Funke’s mom, stole years in the past. Lengthy earlier than the catastrophic accident introduced Liv and Funke collectively, Lizzie had been the star of the household, the one with a thirst for all times and the spirit to defy conference, marrying a good-looking Nigerian medical pupil. Margot all the time resented her vibrant sister, however the rivalry curdled into long-term hate when Lizzie married outdoors societal norms, thereby diminishing Margot’s possibilities of their circles. And Margot by no means, ever rose above it.

As time strikes on to 1986, 1992 and 1998, decades-old sins and resentments show ever extra poisonous. Margot’s take the obvious toll on Liv, who craves love and acceptance she will be able to by no means get from her mom: “Liv had let her mom down by being too fats then too skinny; too wild then too boring; too loud then too quiet. Every week her mom picked a particular failing.” The household struggles bleed past the borders of sister to sister and mom to daughter and develop into intergenerational. The connection between Funke and Liv grows equally difficult and, finally, harmful. The results of Liv and Dominic’s mounting recklessness get blamed on Funke, and all of the whereas Margot is plotting to seize what’s left of the Stone fortune.

It’s on this dissection of the results of household privilege and poisonous private grievance that the novel positive factors traction. Nikki Might’s second novel excels at portraying the intricate cuts and scarring attributable to household battle and standing obsession on an interpersonal stage. Race complicates issues, however not in a very political method. “This Motherless Land” facilities the inheritance plot of “Mansfield Park,” however the struggles of delight and petty prejudices are one other specific motif. The jealousies they spawn are the true driver of this melodramatic however satisfying story.

Carole V. Bell is a tradition author and media researcher exploring politics and identification in artwork.