Book review – “Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I posted earlier in the week about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist and one of the books I was surprised not to see on the list (it did not even make the longlist) was the latest (and for me long-awaited) novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So surprised was I by this oversight that I even double checked the eligibility criteria – was it published within the time frame? It was indeed and I remain very puzzled. It is hard to believe that it is twelve years since Adichie published her last novel Americanah, though in the intervening period she has written some shorter form non-fiction works. She and her partner have a young family so presumably she has been focusing on raising her children and she also lost both her parents and has written about her grief at these events.

Well, it was, in  my opinion,  worth the wait because she has well and truly hit a very rich seam once again with this, her fourth novel. Dream Count reflects on the dilemmas facing women today, on the choices between career and family, on the unreliability of too many men, on cultural clashes, on food, on the Covid 19 pandemic, on loneliness and fulfilment, on Africa and on inequality. 

The novel traces the story of four women – Chiamaka, who comes from a wealthy Nigerian family, her cousin Omelogor, a brilliant financial analyst and sometime academic, Chiamaka’s friend Zikora, a lawyer, and her long-time housekeeper in the US Kadiatou. The novel opens with Chiamaka’s story at the time of the Covid 19 pandemic when she finds herself stranded in the US, only able to communicate with family via internet video calls, as happened with so many of us. Chiamaka is a travel writer, who has had only moderate success, but her family’s wealth means she has no real need to work. There is pressure from her family to marry and have a family, however. Chiamaka is a romantic and the novel recounts some of her many relationships, but the men in her life invariably fall short either of her ideals of marriage or in terms of their character. 

Omelogor is a self-made woman, highly intelligent and extremely able from a young age she became a financier in Nigeria and made her fortune by taking her own share of the corrupt profits she helped her unscrupulous bosses cream off the state. A modern day Robin Hood-ess she sets about redistributing funds to less fortunate, less educated women in her community, women trying to support their families by setting up small businesses. Latterly she takes a sabbatical in the US and becomes a researcher into internet pornography and how this impacts on men’s perceptions of women and how they conduct themselves in relationships.

Kadiatou is Chiamaka’s housekeeper in the US. A deeply caring woman who left Nigeria at the behest of a man who promised to marry her. She has a daughter to whom she is devoted. Kadiatou becomes embroiled in a high-profile sexual assault case which closely resembles the true story of Nafissatou Diallo, a maid at a luxury New York hotel, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director of the IMF, in 2011. The author references this case in her afterword. In her exploration of Kadiatou’s assault, the author explores the perennial problem of power imbalance and how the law and the media are stacked against immigrants, women and poorer people.

The fourth main character is Zikora, close friend of Chiamaka and Omelogor, a lawyer who also experiences family pressure to marry and start a family, but who again, finds herself let down by inadequate men, but also, sadly, a distant mother. 

The novel alternates between the different women’s perspectives, exploring their back stories, their thoughts, their preoccupations and their dreams. ‘Dream count’ seems to refer to the different sexual and romantic relationships and encounters they have, the good, the bad and the really ugly. Thus the term ‘dream’ becomes one that is loaded with irony and with cultural perceptions (a partner may appear ideal, dream-like, from the outside, but there are usually problems and inadequacies that make them unsuitable or unacceptable to these women). In their different ways none is prepared to settle for a second-best. 

There is so much to love in this novel. I listened to it on audio and was delighted that the opening part of Chiamaka is read by the author. Her voice is smooth and rich and filled with the nuance that only she, as the author, could understand. Thus she brings expression that makes listening even more of a pleasure. If I had read this as a book I feel sure I would have been turning the corner on every other page, defacing it with hundreds of underlinings and notes because the language and the expression are so powerful. 

It is the best post-pandemic novel I have read to date and a book I highly recommend.