Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)

After reading the back-cover blurb of this novel by Nigerian author Adichie, the reader would assume it to be primarily a love story, although the concluding sentence on the trade paperback I read might give a clue as to what this really is. It says, "...Americanah is a remarkable novel of race, love, and identity...." As this sentence hints, Americanah is primarily about race, particularly about racism in America. The love story is strictly secondary; the male half of the couple in love is not even present for more than half of the book.

The female protagonist, Ifemelu, is a college student in Nigeria when the college instructors go on strike, prompting her to head for America to complete her studies, leaving behind her sweetheart Obinze. Forced by a need for money to submit to an act she considers shameful, she (rather illogically, I thought) ceases to communicate with her left-behind lover, out of embarrassment and guilt. The center portion of the book, which is the longest part by far, details her experiences in America, including her love affairs with a rich white playboy and a black American professor. When she returns to Nigeria after almost 15 years, she again meets her former love, Obinze, and the last 60 pages of the 588-page book narrate the ending of their love story.

The whole center portion of the book features a revolving cast of wooden characters who all seem to serve the sole purpose of pointing out how bigoted Americans are. Interspersed with the narrative are portions of a blog that Ifemelu writes titled "Raceteenth or Curious Observations of a Non-American Black on the Subject of Blackness in America." That should have been the title of this book. All the plot just seems like framework to qualify the work as a novel instead of what it mainly seems to be -- a series of examples showing how America is rife with racism.

She is partially right, of course. A great many Americans do hold racist views, but her comments become somewhat offensive when she mocks even the well-intentioned white liberal characters. It becomes apparent that nobody American is exempt from her disparagement.

Adichie is a very talented writer; her novel Half of a Yellow Sun is extraordinarily good. This one attracted much critical praise and even won the National Book Critics Circle Award, but I can't help wondering if part of that adulation came from white Americans being politically correct and trying to show that they accept white guilt. That sounds cynical, and might perhaps be considered a racist comment by some, but I stand by my contention that while this may be a sharp commentary on race relations in America, it is not a successful novel.

Besides, I hate the way it ended.