We MFAs have a book club, and this is the one we’re reading. I’m only a tenth of the way into it, but it’s already excellent. Brilliantly drawn characters, very specific situations. It began with the main character, a Nigerian-born lecturer at Princeton, going into Trenton to get her hair braided. And I was like, “Wow, this is very well-written and well-observed, but where’s the story?” And then I stopped wondering. The story never really materialized! She just sat in the chair and ruminated about stuff going on in her life (she’d recently decided to move back to Nigeria after twelve years in the states). Which is dramatic and all, but the salon scene still did nothing to advance the plot.

And yet, it didn’t matter. Eventually I stopped worrying about the story. Hope it remains as good.