In A Spell of Good Things, the strong and intricate second novel by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, the fates of two Nigerian families are incrementally braided together into a treacherous social fabric.
Wúràọlá is an overworked medical student whose professional career has been undeniably boosted by her ongoing relationship with the brash and unpredictable Kúnlé, whose parents are highly respected professors in the medical community, and whose father intends to run for political office. Ẹniọlá is a resourceful schoolboy whose family has recently fallen into severe financial instability. They cannot afford food, let alone pay his private school dues and his apprenticeship fees at a nearby tailoring shop, the vocation that may be his only saving grace if academics fail him--but only if he can resist the allure of fast-money schemes in the meantime.
That shop forms an intersection between these social strata once Wúràọlá enters with her mother in search of formal dresses for the auspicious occasions mounting on their family's horizon. But as Wúràọlá is scolded for having gotten so old without marrying, and as Ẹniọlá's poverty becomes more desperate, the pressure to seize the day rains down impossible dilemmas upon them both, in a setting where "every day is for the thief" (to quote fellow Nigerian author Teju Cole, as Adébáyọ̀ does).
If her first novel, Stay with Me, was a tightly wound domestic drama about a marriage in crisis, this one stretches mightily across class boundaries to illustrate persistent limits on social mobility. Her prose is sumptuous and narrative style enthralling. A Spell of Good Things is an apt title for Adébáyọ̀'s work thus far. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness