Politics and men: two concepts that theoretically hold the promise of stability but are often more vexing than one had hoped. Such is the perspective, anyway, of the four Nigerian women in Dream Count, a jam-packed novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Americanah) that addresses these topics, as well as the African diaspora, immigration, and justice in the United States.
Chiamaka is a travel writer who comes from wealth and now lives in Maryland. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, unmarried Chia decides "at first to make the most of this collective sequestering" but ends up brooding about lost loves, among them Darnell, "the Denzel Washington of academia." Her best friend, Zikora, a corporate lawyer in Washington, D.C., has a different problem. She's giving birth, yet the child's father is long gone from her life, an unsurprising event for a woman who refers to men as "thieves of time."
Their stories overlap, as do those of two more women. One is Kadiatou, Chia's housekeeper, who came to the U.S. with her daughter, Binta; works as a hotel maid; and becomes the center of unwanted media attention after a prominent guest sexually assaults her. The other is Omelogor, who worked in banking in the U.S. before returning to Nigeria, but not before enrolling in a graduate program to study pornography and figure out "how the industry was built, so she could learn how its influence could be undone." With its blending of the political and personal, this is a very modern story of women enduring more than their share of injustice and heartache. It's all brilliantly done. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer