Tolstoy may have made famous the claim that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but Tolani Akinola takes the old adage to new heights in Leave Your Mess at Home, an incredible and moving debut novel centered on one family's dysfunction that probes questions of familial belonging and duty, immigration and identity, harm and healing.
The Longes moved to Chicago from Nigeria in search of the American Dream and, from the outside, they've achieved it. But Ola, a successful businessman, is considering how to raise his first child in a world not built to be kind to men like him, neither Black enough for American culture nor Nigerian enough to belong fully to his parents' people. Anjola, a doctor, is burnt out in her career and secretly in love with her best friend, who is engaged to someone else. Karen is still in university, but is as unclear on how to tell her parents she does not want to be a doctor as she is on how to tell them she might be gay. And all of that is not to mention Sola, the eldest daughter, long estranged from her family.
When Sola returns to Chicago following the very public implosion of her influencer career, her homecoming proves the harbinger of a great reckoning for the Longes, as long-buried secrets are laid bare. Heartfelt and heartbreaking, Leave Your Mess at Home is a reminder that everyone is a product of where they come from, yet in belonging to a family, there is always choice in what shape that belonging may take across hurt and harm and, ultimately, healing. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer