The Visit - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

AUTHOR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

SERIES: Black Stars, #1

GENRE: Speculative Satire, Short Story

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A speculative fiction short story with gender role reversal as the prime theme. Hilarious satire if you understand the point it is trying to make. Loved most of the story. The ending could have been better.

Story Synopsis:

It’s a matriarchal world. In Lagos, Obinna is a dutiful stay-at-home husband taking care of the house and the kids while his successful wife is at work. When he hears of his old school friend Eze coming from the US for a visit (that’s the visit in the title!), Obinna’s carefully planned life turns a little haywire as Eze is single and rebellious. Can Obinna truly let go and enjoy himself in a world where men are expected to live within the preset societal norms of decorum?

 

Where the story worked for me:

😍 As a satire, this story hits the nail on the head. It offers a superficially humorous look at what is, in reality, a serious problem. Chimamanda is one of the few authors who has the capacity to pull off such a tale.

😍 The flipped gender stance of this story offered a strange mixture of fun and bewilderment by portraying a world wherein men live the lives that we women live in our world. Imagine reading lines like “Marriage is the ultimate prize for a man"; the brain takes some time to adapt to this strange turnaround in gender Olympics. A part of me felt vindicated, but I also realised the dangers of extreme feminism that some “feminists” advocate by bashing men every chance they get. True equality comes not from one gender’s dominance but a balance of power across all genders. Heck, stop looking at genders and just look at the person’s capabalities!

😍 There are so many parallels between reality and speculation in this short. Sample this: Masturbation has just been declared illegal in the US and the woman president is applauding the decision. The men are obviously up in arms, claiming it's their body and they have the right to decide what to do with it. Sounds familiar?

Where the story could have worked better for me:

😑 The ending was kinda disappointing. Very abrupt. I feel it took things too far and spoilt what was otherwise a brilliant short fiction.

😑 The cover gave me cosmic sci-fi vibes and a part of me expected aliens to pop up as part of ‘the visit’. (I hope I am not the only eejit who assumed this! 😄 This is what comes of selecting a story by looking at just the cover and the author’s name.) I was somewhat disappointed to see that the ‘speculative’ aspect of this story was set in an alternate reality of our own world.

It would be easy to claim that men should read this and understand what women go through. It's partly correct. But we should remember that the purpose of this story is to highlight the wrongs in the present patriarchal system, not to suggest a world where women dominate, unlike what some of the reviews are saying. There’s no gender bashing here, just a spotlight on the flaws of a societal system that we all are so attuned to that it doesn’t even strike as odd anymore.

I liked this little story, though the "story" part of it was minimal. Satirical at its core, impactful in its content. Do try. 

The Visit is part of the ‘Black Stars’ series, a collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. This collection is available for free to Amazon prime subscribers.