Title: Desperate Desires
Author: Rita Nwamaka Egbo
Pages: 183
Publisher: Parresia
Reviewer: Nathaniel Bivan
When you pick a book like ‘Desperate Desires’ to read, the title may seem like an instant give-away, but this particular one isn’t in that category because it turns out not to be a typical romance novel, even though it may have worked best as one.
Set in Lagos and Asaba, it tells the story of Susan, an apparently successful banker who has no scruples compromising her dignity to get rich men to open accounts in the bank she works for.
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However, this may be the only negative side to her, because, aside this, Susan is a wonderful woman who does everything in her power to get the ‘right man’ in her sights.
And she does seem to, only that they always slip out of her hands, or more accurately, sabotage the relationship.
It’s either she gets lured by one who has a family abroad or ends up dating a woman beater.
Susan has been through so much, and being beautiful with a figure that blossomed early, has not made things easy for her.
Once as a teenager, she was raped by a cousin, also, her physical assets should have come handy in getting her a husband early, but no, even her youngest sister already plans to get married before her and so pressure from family, friends and her grandmother keep rising to the limits.
Usually, when you read a story like ‘Desperate Desires’, you unconsciously look for those things that set the book aside from the many out there that focus on marriage for women and the pressure to get a husband, a visit to a so-called prophet or witch doctor for a solution, and so on.
The only notable difference in this work is that Susan doesn’t get immersed into this even when her friend, Nikky, pressurises her.
This brings us to Nikky who plays an important role as Susan’s best friend.
The foreshadowing that gives a reader the clue that Nikky is suffering from a terminal illness is commendable, however the execution deserves some condemnation.
While you are afraid for her, suddenly it appears she has been cured, and then, without warning, she is said to be dying.
Then there’s Sam, Susan’s childhood love, whose character deserves more than a small attempt by his employer’s daughter to woo him to bed.
The stage is set for a big scandal that never happens, and it simply became a story of happily ever after when that could have been a springboard for something really devastating before a resolution.
So, there’s nothing, except what seems like an attempt to show what Sam’s life was like on the other side.
But what happened to his manipulative and powerful employer?
Why did he fizzle out like he never existed?
These are questions that beg for scenes that could have made the love between Sam and Susan more impossible instead of an ending that lacked merit.
So, yes, the ending. ‘Desperate Desires’’ major flaw is towards the ending when it becomes obvious the writer was in a hurry to tie loose ends and wrap up the story.
Talking about how it all ends would be a spoiler, so unfortunately readers will have to find this out for themselves, and as always, one man’s meat is another’s poison, and there is the likelihood some will find the ending a good one.
This reviewer didn’t.
Nevertheless, for a debut novel, Rita Nwamaka Egbo certainly did a fair job with this story about a woman in her late thirties and her struggle to fit into a society where being unmarried is considered distasteful and has the likelihood of pushing many into wrong or abusive relationships while they suffer in silence.
