It opens with the life performance of The Last Amazon of Dahomey at a theatre in London. It ends with the after-party of the play.Amma is the brain behind the production. Somewhere in the crowd watching the production are Yazz, Ammas daughter, Dominique, her friend and others. And from the theatre we dissolve into these twelve characters, which also include Carole, Bummi, LaTisha, Shirley, Winsome, Penelope, Megan, Hattie and Grace. We also return to the theatre to see the characters meet and we see the relationships between them and what they think of one another. We see envy. We see love. We see jealousy. We see deceit. And we see pride and prejudice.The bulk of the characters are friends, relatives or lovers. Others meet at the theatre on the night The Last Amazon of Dahomey is on display. The characters are flawed and complex, and in search of love and joy.Girl, Woman, Other follows these characters who are black and British. Their ages range from 19 to 90+. Each of these characters has agency, which makes them lead different lives that will leave some mortals cringing. The Britain they unveil to us is not one that we can claim to know very well.The prose, in some breathe, feels like poetry, stripped of capitalisation and punctuation: While dancing / for herself / out of it / out of her head / out of her body / feeling it / freeing it / nobody watching.The characters have all kinds of secrets. One had a child at 14 and never told anyone about it until DNA test unexpectedly brought the child to her doorstep; another was sleeping with her son-in-law; and another was a flirt of no mean standing.In this Anglo-Nigerian author Bernardine Evaristos Booker winning novel, English grammar rules are suspended as we get to meet each of these women in different sections of the book. There are no capitalisations, unless it is a noun, no standard paragraphs. It will take an average reader some pages into the novel to get into the world Evaristo created for six years!Their stories read like short stories, which are somewhat connected. We get to know them from their own introspection, their own thoughts and reflections. We also get to see them from another prism as their lives intersect. At this stage, we get to test the truth in the saying that there are two sides to a story.Insights into the messages in the book are clear in quotes, such as these: A Muslim man carries out a mass shooting or blows people up and hes called a terrorist, a white man does the exact same thing and hes called a madman, and You never know people until you have been through their drawers and computer history.The women have different concerns. Amma, a lesbian and playwright, lives in a patriarchal society and confronts headlong the question of what it means to be politically pure, or to be a sell out.Read Also:My Lagos story (2)Carole is concerned about success in the banking world. For non-binary Morgan, who used to be Meghan, gender identity is his challenge. Shirley, a teacher and Ammas friend, finds the company of lesbians uncomfortable. Bummi, the immigrant parent, rebels against her child bringing home a white partner; but later gives up.Racism of the rabid sort gets a major slice of the issues tackled by this book. Imagine a child being pinched to see if he or she will be bruised or scratched with compass to see if she would bleed and what colour is the blood; imagine a child being asked if her blackness could be scrubbed off and was held down and scratched with scrubbing brush. Just imagine.Imagine a woman being denied employment in a store just because she was coloured; so frustrated about this, Grace thought of burning down the store at night with the manager inside screaming for help.A grocer even threw Graces change on the counter with so much force that made it scatter on the floor. Even a maid refused to take instruction from herall because of her skin colour. Graces story is really heart-breaking: her struggle, her stillbirths, her struggle with mental health and her refusal to believe Harriet would live.Though the women in this book try to defy patriarchy, it still rears its ugly head. We see a father who is only happy when there comes a grandson to take over his huge farm despite having a daughter!Of particular importance, to me, is the Nigeria that features in this novel. We see Niger Delta. We see Makoko. We see Lagos. Though set in old Lagos, old Makoko and old Niger Delta, nothing much has changed. Unlike the Britain in the book, which changed over the years, the Niger Delta, which Bummi fled to Lagos still, largely, remains the same, where injustice and environmental pollution are still the order of the day.Evaristo also touches the changing landscape for teachers in the UK. In those days, teachers were all in all and were both feared and respected by students. But the UK schools of nowadays are where students are lords unto themselves: They use drugs, bear arms and teachers and their colleagues are afraid of being attacked. Morals have been consigned to the dustbin. Almost every other day, kids perpetuate violence that will make adults cringe.This is one novel that cuts across many nations. Nigeria has a generous mention. American features prominently. Benin Republic, The Gambia, Egypt, Ethiopia and others are given good treatments. It also cuts across generations in such a way that there is something for everyone. Brexit (and the confusion around it) also features prominently.The moment Penelope meets Hattie, her mother (whose existence she did not know for 70 years or so), is a fitting end to an amazing piece of literature. Hattie was 14 when she had Penelope but her parents took her away and dumped her somewhere where another family picked and raised her.
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