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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Three women, one man: The Geography of Friendship & The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

1/2/2019

6 Comments

 
I can recommend both of these novels about women whose lives are entangled with that of one man. In the first, three Australian friends are stalked by an unpleasant character when they embark on a long-distance walk. In the second, three Nigerian women have managed their common husband successfully, until he introduces a fourth wife into their home.

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The Geography of Friendship by Sally Piper

Samantha, Lisa and Nicole were on the cusp of adolescence when they bonded at school. Despite their differences in temperament, they were fiercely loyal and seemingly immune from the rivalries that can blight the friendships of adolescent girls. They remained close into their early twenties until, after a gruelling five-day bush walk, they drifted apart. Now, twenty-four years later, Lisa has persuaded the other two to physically and mentally revisit the past.
 
Samantha, a self-doubting wife and mother of three teenage boys, seems particularly nervous about the psychological and physical challenge. But she can’t say no. Nicole, an unattached and restless professional, keeps herself aloof from both reader and companions initially, and we eventually discover why. Lisa is perhaps the most open about her limitations, although ambivalent about renouncing the anger that defines her but has driven her daughter away.
 
It was Lisa’s aggression that catalysed the young women’s difficulties when they first visited these parts. Failing to slow down on arriving at the trail car park, she showered another driver with dust. When he declined Samantha’s apology, Lisa refused to back down, leading him to retaliate in a most unpleasant way. As their paths cross over the next few days, things turn very nasty indeed.
 
In her second novel, Brisbane-based author Sally Piper beautifully evokes both the geography and the friendship, and their changes over time. The wilderness might have been somewhat tamed in the intervening years, with clearer signage and long-drop toilets at the camps, but the misogyny that gave birth to the #metoo movement might not have altered as much as we’d hope. The creeping menace, as well as the young women’s self-sabotage and unwillingness to acknowledge the evidence before them, was also very convincing.
 
Am I similarly guilty of underestimating the risks if I admit that I found the stalker/bully somewhat extreme? After all, I know such characters exist – and worse – but, as I tell those who express surprise that I’m not afraid to go walking alone, why would they travel out to the countryside when they could find a victim with less effort nearer home? It would be interesting to compare reading experiences with someone less invested in solo walking.
 
As a fast walker myself, I sympathised with Nicole’s striding ahead (p101):
 
Nicole … hadn’t known how to slow her body down, how to make it four in with the slow pace of others. If she tried to, she became agitated with restlessness. A kind of madness in stasis. Her body tensed with the urge to move. She had to consciously hold herself back like a pulled bowstring, while her mind – her conscience – said that she must stop, that she must wait.
 
This is another great addition to my collection of female Australian authors. Thanks to this novel’s British publisher, Legend Press for my review copy.


The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin

Baba Segi thinks he knows women; after all, the prosperous businessman from Ibadan lives with three of them, and the seven children they’ve borne him. As husbands go, he’s a tolerant, fair-minded character, giving his wives equal access to his body and time. But things change when he takes a fourth wife: the other three resent her university education; Baba Segi is humiliated by her failure to give him a child.
 
With wry humour and beautiful prose, Lola Shoneyin’s debut novel delves into the hearts and minds of all five main characters, reviewing the paths that led to this situation, and their fears of where it might lead. Tragedy has brought all four women to the marriage, and it isn’t only the educated woman who harbours secret plans.
 
Published by Serpent’s Tail in 2010, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives predates another Nigerian novel about infertility, Stay With Me. I can happily recommend both. (Sorry it’s such a short review: I’m nursing a cold!)
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Charli Mills
6/2/2019 05:08:20 pm

Sally Piper's book sounds intriguing. Like you, Anne, I'm a solo walker. Not a fast-strider any more, though. Piper's description through one of her characters about feeling held back needs the counterbalance of another struggling to keep up and failing. A lot of women in the US jog alone, and it's considered dangerous, given the number of attacks. But women still do it, as if driven to run, driven to succeed, and maybe we all miss the warning signs and are really running from what we don't want to face. I bet that book would be great for discussion groups.

I hope you are feeling better soon!

Reply
Anne Goodwin
9/2/2019 09:45:01 am

I used to run when half marathons were all the rage and found it a good way of fitting exercise into a short space of time (I think it took me half an hour to do a lap through a park close to where I lived). But walking is much kinder on the knees, as well as better for thinking.
As to the risks, I think we have to do our own audit of the benefits versus risks. Driving a car is extremely dangerous yet few of us are put off for that reason.
Good point about running away / from though. We have lots of ways of doing that, including as I've said before through travel.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
16/2/2019 07:36:27 am

I'm late getting to this post, Anne. I hope you are feeling better by now. It's not much fun being unwell.
I hadn't heard of this book of Sally Piper's but it does sound interesting. On the subject of walking alone, do we do it because it's our right to walk alone safely, even if others choose to make it not so? If we didn't go alone, and had no one to accompany us, are we then not just giving into fear and maybes and robbing ourselves of necessary physical activity?
I've often wondered how people survive in a situation such as that described in The Secret Lives. I can see the arrangement would have advantages as well as disadvantages. Perhaps acceptance simply requires a new way of thinking.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
16/2/2019 01:34:19 pm

Thanks, Norah, your visits are most welcome whenever it suits you.
As for the walking, I've nothing against giving in to fear. Almost everything we do has an element of risk, it's mostly a matter of weighing up which we feel is worth our while.
Unfortunately, my virus lingers and I've been almost 3 weeks without walking -- annoying at any time but especially galling now we're having some lovely mild sunny days.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
17/2/2019 07:35:27 am

I'm so sorry you are still feeling unwell, Anne, and not able to enjoy your mild weather. I hope the mild weather lingers long after your virus recedes. I hope that is soon.

Anne Goodwin
17/2/2019 02:08:48 pm

Thanks, Norah.


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