Book Club Recap: The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Dear Lovers, Haters, and Nit-Pickers!
Our October Book Club pick put us through yet another emotional wringer. For some, this book was dark and heavy and even caused a hefty dose of anxiety. For others, it was immersive and turned into an unexpected literary gem.
But it’s safe to say that no one remained indifferent to the incredible journey of Adunni, the protagonist in The Girl With The Louding Voice.
Here’s a summary of what we learned reading this book as writers.
CLEAR STRUCTURE
First thing that stood out was how clearly structured the beginning of this book was. There is a very clear inciting incident (Adunni’s father’s decision to marry her off to an old man at the sensitive age of fourteen). There’s also a very clear ‘breaking into two’ beat (as per Save the Cat beat sheet) that signals the beginning of the Act II in the story (Khadija’s unfortunate death that forces Adunni to run in order to save her life).
The ending, though, wasn’t as clear. We struggled to identify what “the dark night of the soul” (the end of Act II) was. Was it Adunni’s only friend and maternal figure Tia getting flogged? Was it the near-rape by Big Daddy? Or her subsequent dealings with Big Madam? For some, not having a clear “dark night of the soul” felt a bit unsatisfying, though, in all honesty, not playing into these (genre and structure) expectations did move this book higher up on Upmarket-Literary scale.
PROTAGONIST HAD A CLEAR GOAL
Those of us writing Women’s Fiction are very aware of how hard setting a clear goal for your protagonist can be. When asked ‘What does your protagonist want?’ most of us will reply with ‘She only wants to be happy/fulfilled.’ But being happy and fulfilled can mean all kinds of different things. For Adunni, being happy and fulfilled means being educated. This clear goal (sometimes not really a goal but more of a deep desire) makes it easy for us to track her progress in the story. It also makes it intuitive and easy for us to understand what a certain plot development means to/for her—since we know what she wants, we can immediately tell if an event is bringing her closer or pulling her away from what she wants the most.
A clear goal also gives us something very specific to root for.
Given everything we’ve learned about the world and society Adunni lives in, we can safely assume that being educated won’t solve ALL her issues. Big Madam is rich and successful, but she still suffers at her douchebag husband’s hand. So, what will it mean for Adunni to get her education? Does it guarantee her a happy life? Probably not. As one of us stated during our discussion—she’d probably have to move away from Nigeria for that education to really make a difference in her life. But as we were reading this book, we knew this was her goal. And getting that scholarship meant reaching that goal, making the book end on a happily-ever-after note, when in reality it’s more of a happy-for-now type of ending.
BROKEN ENGLISH DIALECT
Broken English dialect was a point of contention among our members. Several members struggled getting into this book and said the language made it hard for them to follow the story. However, it seems to me these members were a minority. Most of the other members felt the language was the number one thing that lured them in. People who listened to the book (narrated by a Nigerian speaker) seemed to be particularly drawn to this accent.
Whether we liked it or not, the broken English wasn’t just there for the sake of it, it was also serving more than one specific purpose.
— giving the protagonist a specific ‘voice;’
— showing her progress over the course of the novel: toward the end, her English got so much better, but most of us appreciated that it still remained imperfect.
— in a way, the protagonist’s command of English language was mirroring her command of her own voice—of her speaking in being-entitled-to-speak kind of way.
TENSION AND STAKES
In the very beginning, tension and stakes are through the roof. If Adunni marries the old guy her father sold her to, she will have to relinquish her dream of becoming a teacher (not to mention be forced to perform marital duties with a man who is old enough to be her grandfather). If she runs away, she will be found and, by virtue of jungle justice, murdered without a trial. So, she goes on to marry the disgusting old man. But when she is involved in his second wife’s demise, Adunni knows she’ll take the fall for her death and be sentenced to death anyway. So she has NO CHOICE but to run away. Stakes throughout Act I, are life-or-death high.
Fortunately for Adunni, but unfortunately for the reader, after Act I, the stakes drop. This has caused a decline in dramatic tension that was felt throughout the rest of the book.
The author introduces the ‘Rebecca’ thread—another hand maid whose fate is unknown, to raise tension and keep us thinking that something bad, possibly even worse than dying might happen to the protagonist. But the author fails to keep this thread tense toward the end. After awhile, it stops being used to foreshadow Adunni’s own fate, and is instead used to give Adunni something to have agency over—something to investigate.
But, that whole thread can also be taken as a metaphor for Adunni’s speaking up for girls who can’t speak for themselves. If this was the author’s intention behind this choice, for me personally, it would have been more satisfying to see Adunni do something specific to seek justice for Rebecca (either by giving the letter to the police officer to get Big Daddy arrested, or in some other way).
CAUSE-AND-EFFECT TRAJECTORY
The whole book is a perfect example of how cause-and-effect trajectory is supposed to work.
After Adunni’s father sells her to Morufu (inciting incident) every following event is caused by the previous ones.
Because her father sells her, she marries Morufu; because she marries him, she lives in his house and becomes friends with Khadija; because she’s friends with Khadija, she helps her find the man who she’s pregnant with; because she goes with Khadija she gets herself in trouble; because she’s in trouble, she has to run away or face death; because she ran away, she depends on Agent Kola and is placed with Big Madam…
The whole book is one big tutorial on how to create an effective cause-and-effect trajectory in a story; nothing happens out of the blue. Many writers will throw in new and unexpected things just to fix the saggy middle or bring more drama. But then they run the risk of their story being just a bunch of unconnected things that happen.
NARRATIVE DRIVE
Just a small note — narrative drive is what makes the reader turn the page, and should not be confused with cause-and-effect trajectory. While C&E trajectory makes sure that each following event is caused by something happening before (because of this, then that), the narrative drive is characterized by evoking concern or curiosity about how the protagonist will meet their goal (What will happen next? How will it unfold?).
Since Adunni’s goal is so clear (get an education and stay alive until she gets it) we are constantly challenged to be curious and concerned about her achieving that goal: will Big Madam beat her to death before she gets to school? Will Big Daddy rape her? Will she get the scholarship in the first place?
THE PROSE FLOW
On sentence-to-sentence, paragraph-to-paragraph, and chapter-to-chapter level, the story flowed so smoothly. It was like listening to someone’s one, continuous thought. Those of us who deal with layered stories know how difficult it is to pull this off, how hard it is to address ALL the different issues and layers while maintaining the uninterrupted, continuous story flow.
THE BOOK PERPETUATES THE ‘ONE STORY OF AFRICA’
In her Ted Talk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (another Nigerian author) tells us that, when she was in college in the US, she wrote a story about Nigeria she knew—Nigeria as seen from her perspective of a middle-class Nigerian girl born into an educated, progressive family. Her US professor told her that the story she wrote wasn't authentic. In other words, he expected a story about lions and glorious, orange sunsets and people living in houses made of cow dung. He expected the ‘one story of Africa,’ not the real—or at least one of the many real—stories of Africa.
Every place has many stories to be told. As one of our members said, the US story is a Fifth Avenue in New York story, as well as a trailer-park in South Carolina story. So why do we expect Africa to have any less stories than the US or UK do?
As a Croatian, this speaks to me with a louding voice. Like many other writers from culturally underrepresented countries, I wanted to write universal stories anchored deep in human condition. I felt, if I wrote a Croatian story, that the things the reader would focus on would be Croatian quirks, and not the story itself. Like Adichie said, many of us still feel like ‘the only story worth telling is the American story.’
That works both ways though—many of us feel that we can only tell our stories if they meet the average person’s expectation of what our story should be. In my case, it’s a post-communist, post-war society filled with quaint places and quirky people (fishermen, peasants) who live, work, and look like they still live in 19 century. And yes. Most of Croatian literature perpetuates this story. Most of Croatian cinematography and literature produces these exact kinds of stories—quirky to the point of being ridiculous, and showing our people as backward and bigoted.
In a sense, The Girl With The Louding Voice feeds into ‘One story of Africa.’ It perpetuates the average person’s conviction that this is what real Africa is—nothing more than poverty, slavery, and unimaginable suffering.
This is not to say that the book is not true to real life in Nigeria. It’s also not to say that stories like Adunni’s aren’t necessary or shouldn’t be heard—they most certainly are, and none of us, no matter how far away we live from Nigeria should be shrugging our shoulders and turning our backs to these little girls who can get schooled for amount of money we use to feed our coffee addiction—but several members emphasized how they would have liked a more nuanced portrait of Africa.
LITERARY VS UPMARKET
I like to raise this particular question in every book club meeting because I think it’s important for us :
— to get a sense of what each category means;
— to keep in mind how fluid the lines between these categories are.
Most members placed this book in the Literary realm—mostly because of beautiful writing, even if it is simplistic and in broken English (it takes a special skill to write beautifully in a broken English), and because of the deeper-level social commentary (of finding one’s voice and oppression of women and minorities worldwide).
Some placed it into Upmarket realm, due to a predictable structure, and also simplistic sentence structure (used because the protagonist is a fourteen-year-old girl).
The general conclusion was that the lines between these genre categories are so porous, and that in this particular case, categorizing is open to interpretation and every person’s internal feel of each genre.
That’s more or less what our book club discussed in our October meeting. I hope I didn’t miss anything, and that this recap was useful!
Until next time, keep safe and keep writing!
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Did you read this book? Would you side with the Lovers, Haters or Nitpickers? Let me know in the comments!
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