BOOK REVIEW: Women Rent Men and Secrets Here by Damilare Kuku

I read Women Rent Men and Secrets Here, Damilare Kuku’s third book, in 4 hours, and it reads like a well-done Nollywood masterpiece. It reminded me of what Africa’s biggest movie industry could be. The author sets out to tell a story and succeeds in doing so.

The characters are colourful, dramatic, and loud. Yet they exist in a sensibly woven universe of continuity and respect for the reader’s common sense, all while teetering on the brink of the fantastical, especially in the context it was set in.

That context is Nigeria, specifically Lagos. The book was set in that amazing centre of chaos, or excellence, whichever you choose to call it. And to a large extent, I suspect that location is what eventually drew me in because I had a hard time getting in initially.

I saw too many of the familiar in the story: a psychotic beggar with his genitals hanging out, a police officer holding on to a woman for too long, and electric power disruptions; it was all too real.

However, a reader who isn’t familiar with any of it would still be pulled in regardless. Amazed and maybe even horrified at the possibility of such chaos actually existing. In a nutshell, I haven’t read Lagos written this vividly in a while.

Now, in that same context, there were factors and events bordering on the fantastical. They were intriguing, as that is my favourite genre of stories. But these events were also concerning in a what-the-fuck-is-happening way. Events that seemed, at first, improbable in the context of Lagos. I had moments when I was telling myself that the Lagos I know is too conservative for these shenanigans.

On second thoughts, truth is always stranger than fiction. And in the context of Lagos and Nigeria, conservativism is a public show. Most of the things I was worried about were behind closed doors, so they track.

That being said, in the first quarter of the book, the logical and emotional parts of my brain were in constant battle, but the latter won.

There’s a saying, or research something, somewhere that suggests the best writers understand that a good story needs to be told above the reader’s need for a clearly connected line. Something like that, I’m summarising in my own words.

This book was surprisingly good. And it was surprising for a lot of reasons.

Firstly, I had divorced contemporary African literature and storytelling for the better part of the last decade. The details of this would make for another day’s story, but bad stories were the reason, summarily. Authors became more focused on optics than on telling good stories.

So on my journey back to the richness of literature from the motherland, I’m always pleasantly surprised and appreciative of a good story just told for the sake of it. Even when there are sprinkles of lessons or, as the young people like to say, “agenda.” There were plenty of them in this story.

Secondly, I remember when the author’s first book came out; it was followed by a lot of fanfare. I remembered looking on with mild curiosity. Which one is that all the men in Lagos are mad again? But I see the “hype” now. This was good.

As a writer living in a ChatGPT world and who has been forced to banish em dashes from my writing, I smiled at Damilare Kuku’s exorbitance with them. She did not hold back, and that made me happy. A satisfying middle finger to em dash deniers.

The division of chapters also gave it that pacing that helped its suspense and likeness to a moving picture.

Was this book all glowing? Well, what book ever is?

The language was more flowery in a lot of places than I liked. This is a personal preference thing; chalk it up to editing other people’s work. To be fair, it’s also the Nigerian writing and even speaking style. So maybe it is contextually realistic. But it was too distracting for me.

The story also felt rushed towards the end. I held the last 20 pages or so in my hands and was screaming NOOOOOOO!!!

This couldn’t be it, this story I’m currently reading couldn’t be satisfactorily resolved in these remaining pages I’m seeing.

When compared to audiovisual media like films, an annoying feature of hallucinating on tree barks is that most books finish on something of a cliffhanger. But this one felt more like a rush than a cliffhanger; it came too quickly.

In all, Damilare Kuku tells a good story, and if that’s what you’re looking for, get a copy of this book.

Shoutout to Tobi Eyinade for gifting me this book and also helping it exist in the world. You’re amazing.