FICTION

The Three of Us

Putnam. May 2023. 192p. ISBN 9780593540718. $26. F
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DEBUT Three wealthy British Nigerians are locked in an epic relationship battle during one afternoon. Fueled by endless bottles of wine, they each tell their point of view in rich, raw, often hilarious detail. The narrator is the young, pampered wife of a workaholic husband and lifelong besties with Temi, the only character in the novel with a name. Temi freed her from her controlling parents by convincing them to send her to college. The friends had a wild run of it until the narrator married. The narrator now finds herself controlled by her adoring husband, and Temi has been an ever-present, no-boundaries, often uninvited visitor during their entire marriage. She is determined to free her friend from the united pressures of her husband and a mother-in-law demanding grandchildren, and her frequent brazen intrusion into the couple’s lives has pushed the husband to distraction. On this day, he comes home early from work and as the three continue to drink, the hostilities escalate into a startling point of no return.
VERDICT Debut novelist Agbaje-Williams brilliantly captures the toxic dynamics of an emotional train wreck that inevitably comes from the imbalance of a fragile marriage threatened by the presence of a conniving third party.
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