This Kind of Trouble: A Novel - Softcover

Eze, Tochi

 
9798217176908: This Kind of Trouble: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 13: 9798217176908
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A riveting tale of forbidden love centered on an estranged couple brought together to reckon with the mysterious events that splintered their family.

In 1960s Lagos, a city enlivened with its newfound independence, headstrong Margaret meets British-born Benjamin, a man seeking his roots after the death of his half-Nigerian father. Despite Margaret’s reluctance, their connection is immediate. They fall in love in the dense, humid city, examining what appears to be their racial and cultural differences. However, as they exchange childhood stories during lazy work lunches, they uncover a past more entangled than they could have ever imagined. Margaret’s deteriorating mental health combined with the shadow of events that transpired decades ago in a small village sets their gradual fracture in motion.

By 2005, Margaret has retired to an upscale gated community in Lagos, and seemingly happy Benjamin lives alone in Atlanta, managing his heart problems with no options when asked to name his next of kin. But their attempt at a settled life is shattered when their grandson begins to show ominous signs echoing the struggles Margaret once faced. The former lovers are forced to reunite to confront the buried secrets they had dismissed in the passion of their youth—secrets that continue to ripple through their family.

A startling and propulsive tale of forbidden love, This Kind of Trouble traces the intertwined legacies of one family’s history, exploring the complex relationship between tradition, modernity, and the ways we seek healing in a changing world. With this debut novel, Tochi Eze announces herself as a dazzling new voice in world literature.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tochi Eze

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1


Benjamin


Atlanta, 2005


Benjamin sat across from the bank officer; there was a small square window inches below the ceiling so that the afternoon sunrays slanted through the opening and fell on his face. The room reminded him of his own office in Ikoyi; the humidity, the feeling of old leather against his back, the smell of tobacco that filtered in from the entrance, as though time had frozen into a capsule. It occurred to him-while the bank officer sifted through his files-that a man should be entitled to the troubles of his making; no more, no less. Yet, it seemed his own troubles began with his father. The poor chap had been born into a quarrel that made him an orphan. And if not his father, then who? Perhaps it began with Benjamin himself those forty or so years ago when he'd moved to Lagos, that city damp with heat, aflame with postindependence ambition, unconscious of its chaos. No. He shook off the thought before it could settle. There was something else. Someone else. The conclusion was both familiar and inevitable, for his troubles, indeed, began with Margaret.

Of course his nostalgia could have been the effect of the phone call from the night before. He'd woken up this morning and wondered if he'd dreamed it-if her voice, after these many years, could have stayed the same. He was not a sentimental man. Even in the old days, he had not given himself to the usual productions of romance-flowers, walking a woman to the salon, complimenting her dress and shoes, her nails, those long cosmetic talons. It was not his style. He'd loved his women the way his father had told him to: like a bird, one had to hover and watch; affection was a matter of practicality.

The bank officer was forty-two years old, named Mark Troshinsky, after his Russian grandfather. His patrilineal family had moved to the United States in 1952; they were veterans, having fought in the Vietnam War. They bled for this country, the bank officer said, his eyes falling briefly on the small American flag on his desk. Last year, the bank officer continued, he'd had a health scare; he did not say what it was, and Benjamin did not ask. After the scare, he was thinking about early retirement. He wanted to spend time on the important things, he'd said. Benjamin nodded to indicate that he was listening, but his mind was now fully turned to Margaret. You must know what you are getting into, Benjamin's father had told him. However, as Benjamin would learn, there comes a time when a father's advice is cast away and the heart devises its own reasons. And when that time came for Benjamin, he followed an old cliché and fell for the great love of his life. Now he shifted slightly on his seat, an attempt to pull himself back to the present, to the bank officer's words. If it was a different day, if his mind was not crowded by the events of yesterday-by that phone call-Benjamin would have said something to the banker about the illusion of retirement. He knew firsthand that the only true retirement was death, and that the absence of work did not mean the absence of anxieties, both old and new.

The bank officer had been to Europe, Thailand, and, more recently, Brazil-an avid traveler, proud of his worldliness. He pulled out a picture from the wallet in his breast pocket and showed Benjamin-the banker standing with two tanned teenagers, his daughters Benjamin presumed, all three of them draped with red and black shawls. Benjamin smiled at the picture and asked about a painting that hung across his desk, performing, in his own way, that polite American curiosity. When Benjamin had first moved to the United States, he thought it absurd that he could learn intimate details of people's lives so casually-in train and bus stations. He still found it affecting that Americans could be so open and friendly yet stubbornly private, generous with their stories but highly suspicious of any interest in their affairs. He smiled at

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 13 
9798217176908
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
321
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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