Nigerian-Nordic Girl's Guide
Interesting that this book starts with a reference to the Earth. In describing how she feels about the Earth, though, Faith also makes it very clear how she feels about her own body. That sense of generosity and interest in her own physicality gives us as readers/listeners a bridge to her experience within her body to make this feel both less intrusive and more intimate, because it has the added intensity given by words. It also gives us a roadmap to the attitudes and Igbo cultural beliefs that Faith's journey of healing led her through.
Faith recognizes from the start the connection between her periods and the guilt she feels over "abandoning" her brothers and father in Nigeria and not returning after her first visit. She was raised by a Nordic immigrant mother, sought father and brothers in Nigeria because of the tumors in her family, thus recognizing that health crises often propel Faith to reconnect with the Nigerian part of her heritage. When ill, she mentions the "parade of blonde doctors at student health" in Iowa, noting both the absence of her family ["the belly is the root, the base of family, of creativity," says the alternative health practitioner] and the presence of alienating racism.
Initially, Faith approaches her fibroids as someone trying to be as stereotypically American, as Western Feminist, as possible. Says Faith, "I need to be informed, active, wary of modern Western pharmaceuticals." Her research reveals that the largest recorded fibroid was 148 pounds. I see here a sense of being on display, a connection to foreign women being sexualized and to the particular objectification of Sarah Bartmaan, of African women transplanted into Western culture.
Faith tries to suppress her rage, considering it her enemy. She refers to her "obscene...veins," her "outbursts of...pus". Her research into miscegenation elicits fears that this has left her physically inadequate, propelling both a need for connection with family and fear of it, for Faith's mother had fibroids ten years ago. Moreover, says Faith, "I block out anything to do with illness and hospitals." This is because of her fear of her mother being ill, and of becoming ill herself, and of the isolation she faced as a child when ill. Faith was not permitted to have tonsils out in children's wing, put in an empty adult room [adultification], probably because of racism in her town. Later, her mother described the fibroids, saying, "I can feel them spreading. All the things I never said, rolled up inside me." The juxtaposition of these incidents makes clear Faith herself has many things unsaid, crystallized when Faith's second major attack comes during the play "For Colored Girls," there with her Black boyfriend and white mother.
Faith brilliantly evokes the institutionalization of the racism and sexism she faces when she seeks help. Her mother's doctor accused her mother of hysteria; in reality, she had ovarian cancer. Like her mother, Faith is thematically and literally terrified of being selfish, of standing up for herself.
Between her lack of pregnancy, being of African descent, over 30, and having a mother with fibroids, Faith has all the risk factors. No prevention because no one knows what causes them, says Faith, adding to the somatic link and the physical/emotional analysis Faith is trying to reconnect in herself. The doctor at the student health center does not believe Faith has fibroids, calling Faith's analysis "doubtful." The doctor then uses "brochure-speak" in response to Faith suggesting she wants a baby and wants to get off birth control. Finally, the doctor sees Faith's uterus and exclaims "I think it could be fibroids!"
Faith's fibroids themselves are benign, friendly, not particularly helpful ["like Iowans," says Faith's friend]. They find they need to work around American [racist, sexist] health system by way of Faith's friend's doctor dad. At the ultrasound, a jabbing med student talking about how it is a great learning moment for them--the white students, that is.
When Faith wakes up, she insists, "I am in pain, and he [man in bed next to her] refuses to see the obvious." She repeats that she is in pain while he asks her to tell him what she wants.
The United States leads the world in hysterectomies, which the doctors finally suggest. Another Black student suggests: "She was going to help you by saving you from yourself."
Most profoundly, another Black student says, "They don't see our bodies. The way we love." Indeed they do not seem to, sticking Faith with a prison-inmate roommate. Faith undergoes a c-section to rid her of tumors that ultimately return, and I cannot bear the repetition of the "wait and watch" slogan.
This has all left me so angry. I can relate to some of what Faith talks about, to being ignored and dismissed and derided and told my pain is all in my head or does not matter. However, the immensity of what she talks about, the horror and the trauma of existing in a country whose health system is populated almost entirely with medical professionals who basically ignore and deride her needs feels unbearable to me. The moment near the end of the story, with Faith's grief over the children she may never have, left me shaken. I wanted a happy ending for her. I felt she had deserved it, as though with enough pain a woman has a right to happiness. That's not how it works.
Craft-wise, I think Faith employed dark humor to great effect here. It inserted enough levity that as the reader, I could follow along without being completely overwhelmed with the hard truths of the narrative. I was seeing also some of the benefits of memoir, in that you can break with narrative tradition in a way that still leaves the story feeling satisfying. Faith did not finish her story with a trip to visit her father and siblings, did not finish it with the birth of her sister's children, not really; she finished it with a surgery on her body, an invasive procedure that left her literally torn open "to prevent infection" [which just sounds completely incorrect and illogical but clearly is what the doctors insisted on], and we find out it is a surgery that did not even do its job. After all her hardship and struggle, the medical health professional, who might as well be the same one every time, tells Faith to wait and see. And Faith lies there bleeding, still saying "I'm in pain" to people who clearly care about her but who do not have the power to do anything to save her.
I was glad there was no suggestion that Faith should somehow be able to save herself, glad the book evoked the mind-body connection but did not get lost there. Mostly, I just feel very sad, to sad to explore the structure of the book more completely. I will say that there was a profound and strong through line running throughout this book and that despite the several themes explored, the narrative and voice remained strong and clear and easy to follow. That seems to me to be the kind of seeming simplicity that is in fact incredibly difficult and arduous to achieve.
I just finished the audiobook and I immediately want to read more from this author.
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Faith recognizes from the start the connection between her periods and the guilt she feels over "abandoning" her brothers and father in Nigeria and not returning after her first visit. She was raised by a Nordic immigrant mother, sought father and brothers in Nigeria because of the tumors in her family, thus recognizing that health crises often propel Faith to reconnect with the Nigerian part of her heritage. When ill, she mentions the "parade of blonde doctors at student health" in Iowa, noting both the absence of her family ["the belly is the root, the base of family, of creativity," says the alternative health practitioner] and the presence of alienating racism.
Initially, Faith approaches her fibroids as someone trying to be as stereotypically American, as Western Feminist, as possible. Says Faith, "I need to be informed, active, wary of modern Western pharmaceuticals." Her research reveals that the largest recorded fibroid was 148 pounds. I see here a sense of being on display, a connection to foreign women being sexualized and to the particular objectification of Sarah Bartmaan, of African women transplanted into Western culture.
Faith tries to suppress her rage, considering it her enemy. She refers to her "obscene...veins," her "outbursts of...pus". Her research into miscegenation elicits fears that this has left her physically inadequate, propelling both a need for connection with family and fear of it, for Faith's mother had fibroids ten years ago. Moreover, says Faith, "I block out anything to do with illness and hospitals." This is because of her fear of her mother being ill, and of becoming ill herself, and of the isolation she faced as a child when ill. Faith was not permitted to have tonsils out in children's wing, put in an empty adult room [adultification], probably because of racism in her town. Later, her mother described the fibroids, saying, "I can feel them spreading. All the things I never said, rolled up inside me." The juxtaposition of these incidents makes clear Faith herself has many things unsaid, crystallized when Faith's second major attack comes during the play "For Colored Girls," there with her Black boyfriend and white mother.
Faith brilliantly evokes the institutionalization of the racism and sexism she faces when she seeks help. Her mother's doctor accused her mother of hysteria; in reality, she had ovarian cancer. Like her mother, Faith is thematically and literally terrified of being selfish, of standing up for herself.
Between her lack of pregnancy, being of African descent, over 30, and having a mother with fibroids, Faith has all the risk factors. No prevention because no one knows what causes them, says Faith, adding to the somatic link and the physical/emotional analysis Faith is trying to reconnect in herself. The doctor at the student health center does not believe Faith has fibroids, calling Faith's analysis "doubtful." The doctor then uses "brochure-speak" in response to Faith suggesting she wants a baby and wants to get off birth control. Finally, the doctor sees Faith's uterus and exclaims "I think it could be fibroids!"
Faith's fibroids themselves are benign, friendly, not particularly helpful ["like Iowans," says Faith's friend]. They find they need to work around American [racist, sexist] health system by way of Faith's friend's doctor dad. At the ultrasound, a jabbing med student talking about how it is a great learning moment for them--the white students, that is.
When Faith wakes up, she insists, "I am in pain, and he [man in bed next to her] refuses to see the obvious." She repeats that she is in pain while he asks her to tell him what she wants.
The United States leads the world in hysterectomies, which the doctors finally suggest. Another Black student suggests: "She was going to help you by saving you from yourself."
Most profoundly, another Black student says, "They don't see our bodies. The way we love." Indeed they do not seem to, sticking Faith with a prison-inmate roommate. Faith undergoes a c-section to rid her of tumors that ultimately return, and I cannot bear the repetition of the "wait and watch" slogan.
This has all left me so angry. I can relate to some of what Faith talks about, to being ignored and dismissed and derided and told my pain is all in my head or does not matter. However, the immensity of what she talks about, the horror and the trauma of existing in a country whose health system is populated almost entirely with medical professionals who basically ignore and deride her needs feels unbearable to me. The moment near the end of the story, with Faith's grief over the children she may never have, left me shaken. I wanted a happy ending for her. I felt she had deserved it, as though with enough pain a woman has a right to happiness. That's not how it works.
Craft-wise, I think Faith employed dark humor to great effect here. It inserted enough levity that as the reader, I could follow along without being completely overwhelmed with the hard truths of the narrative. I was seeing also some of the benefits of memoir, in that you can break with narrative tradition in a way that still leaves the story feeling satisfying. Faith did not finish her story with a trip to visit her father and siblings, did not finish it with the birth of her sister's children, not really; she finished it with a surgery on her body, an invasive procedure that left her literally torn open "to prevent infection" [which just sounds completely incorrect and illogical but clearly is what the doctors insisted on], and we find out it is a surgery that did not even do its job. After all her hardship and struggle, the medical health professional, who might as well be the same one every time, tells Faith to wait and see. And Faith lies there bleeding, still saying "I'm in pain" to people who clearly care about her but who do not have the power to do anything to save her.
I was glad there was no suggestion that Faith should somehow be able to save herself, glad the book evoked the mind-body connection but did not get lost there. Mostly, I just feel very sad, to sad to explore the structure of the book more completely. I will say that there was a profound and strong through line running throughout this book and that despite the several themes explored, the narrative and voice remained strong and clear and easy to follow. That seems to me to be the kind of seeming simplicity that is in fact incredibly difficult and arduous to achieve.
I just finished the audiobook and I immediately want to read more from this author.
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this is a strong and thorough entry. It says everything and you find the techniques and the connections pretty strongly I can't say much more than Brava.
ReplyDeletee
ps: sent it to Faith
DeleteI appreciated your point about the dark humor the author employs. It was a really effective device for talking about such intense subject matter. The genius of the humor Adiele employs here is that it keeps the listener in an otherwise extremely grim narrative. This is incredibly important because this story and voice needs to be heard. (It so rarely is.) Also, from a craft perspective, I agree that it's always impressive when an author is able to do all the things (humor, emotionally poignant moments, commentary, forcing the reader to sit with uncomfortable questions) at once and make it sound 'simple.' Adiele shows true mastery in this.
Delete.