PanThe RumpusThe money-hungry versions of Jende and Neni might not have repelled so sharply if Mbue had portrayed their contradictions from the start, if they had evolved as complicated characters over the course of the story. Instead, she has them spew clichés about dreams and opportunities, she puts masks on them to make them likeable, then strips them off to show the desperate man and woman underneath. By withholding our access to the real identities of Jende and Neni for so long, Mbue disguises the truth about them—how poverty, or the dread of it, can warp people—denying us the very reason for which we read.
Darryl Pinckney
PositiveThe RumpusThe narrative shifts freely, unpredictably, but with a cerebral coolness, from subject to subject, Europe to America, present to past, from personal drama to reflections on black history or the mission to reconstruct Berlin. The storytelling is fractured. The plot is made of scenes intercutting other scenes, of delayed resolutions. It’s not always easy to follow what’s going on, but re-reading is a rich experience, as pieces come together to illuminate each other.
