Sunshine on the Crooked Road
In the warm novel Sunshine on the Crooked Road, a lonely wife finds solace in her local communities.
In Ndirangu Githaiga’s action-packed novel Sunshine on the Crooked Road, a Kenyan woman’s negotiation of life abroad and at home is complicated by her problematic marriage.
Just before pursuing studies in the United States, Kabogo marries Wanjikũ. Their marriage is a convenience from Kabogo’s side and is shaky at best. Though Wanjikũ finds solace among others within the Connecticut academic community, including Bill and Karen, who become her local family, Kabogo is not as interested in making local ties. After a short period, he announces that they are going to return to Kenya with their young baby; Wanjikũ isn’t given a choice but to follow along.
Back in Kenya and unhappy since her return, Wanjikũ pursues sewing work, taking a booth at a local market and creating beautiful vitenge. Now, her happiness stems from the friends she makes at the market, from her eventual work making clothes for children at a local orphanage, and from raising her daughter, Nyagũthiĩ. Mama Milka and Mrs. Makokha are her sources of local support; her husband remains all but absent from her life.
The narrative is flush with engaging and lively conversations that give shape and dimensionality to its characterizations, while insights regarding Kenya’s government, both before and after British rule, and local traditions flesh out its background. Wanjikũ’s story, however, becomes unwieldy as it progresses. She faces numerous challenges in the course of the novel, whose progression is swift. Indeed, the narrative becomes chaotic because of its preponderance of events and new names.
Further, the prose is thick with unfiltered details, as with the scene in which Wanjikũ marries Kabogo, wherein as much attention is devoted to attendees’ accessories as to the dispositions of the bride’s and groom’s parents. In such cases, the secondary details come at the expense of the book’s emotional development. And some significant plot points are buried beneath the intricate prose; how Wanjikũ deals with upsetting discoveries about her marriage is glossed over, for example, such that her pain is rendered akin to an additional detail within the larger, multifaceted story. Nonetheless, the book hurtles toward a satisfying conclusion in which Wanjikũ’s and Nyagũthiĩ’s stories begin to run parallel to each another in freeing ways.
About the significance of family and community, the rich novel Sunshine on the Crooked Road follows a Kenyan woman as she navigates her changing environments and various life challenges.
Reviewed by
Caroline Goldberg Igra
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
