A young woman struggles through anguish and depression after her husband dies by suicide in Someday, Maybe, the raw, honest first novel from Nigerian British author Onyi Nwabineli.
"Here are three things you should know about my husband," main character Eve tells readers, going on to say that she loved Quentin deeply, he seemed happy and yet, "he committed suicide." She says of herself, "Here is one thing you should know about me: 1. I found him. Bonus fact: No. I am not okay." The aftermath leaves her unable to do more than lie in bed and try to catch his scent from a sweatshirt. Her close-knit Nigerian-British family rallies around her with food, prayers and nudges to return to life, but grief consumes her as she tries to take stock of her new reality. A steady diet of prescription pills dulls the pain but ultimately sends Eve into a deeper spiral that ends in the loss of her job. Complicating matters further is Aspen, Quentin's mother, who always disapproved of Eve as a daughter-in-law and now blames her for Quentin's death. As Eve freefalls into despair, a surprising revelation upends her world yet again, driving her briefly to flee in search of the answers behind Quentin's actions.
Nwabineli's perceptive, painstaking interrogation of loss and depression is told in Eve's candid, sarcastic voice. Her grief is portrayed realistically, as a complex, long-lived creature that embeds itself deeply, shifting but always present. Readers ready for a challenging pilgrimage through tragedy will find rewards in Nwabineli's clear-eyed, compassionate take on the often-unremarked messiness of survival. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads