Living on the margin: A review of JC Amaechi’s Black Ink, White Paper
By Nket Awaji
The metaphor embedded in JC Amaechi’s title is quite striking, especially in the way it hints at the social anxiety of the story: being black in a white-dominated society. The writer may be writing from within the line on this “white paper,” but the protagonist’s experience, as the story depicts, is lived on the margin of that paper, on the fringe of racial discrimination, cultural alienation, culminating in her grappling with identity.
While the aforestated undergird the plot, at the periphery of the novel is the romantic escapade of a beautiful Nigerian immigrant girl with the son of a white bourgeoisie, in UK. As much as this romance, and its many twists and turns, drives the overt plot of the story, the reader sooner comes face to face with the racial prejudice, displacement, search for identity, as well as the brazenly immoral practices in the corporate sphere of the United Kingdom, which the novel confronts.
The plot unfolds the story of Kambili Simpson, who has just finished her Msc, and desires to work and eventually settles down in UK, instead of returning back to her country. Hence, she begins to hunt for job, pressed against the hourglass of her fast-expiring graduate visa. Fortunately, after series of futile applications, she secures an interview with Nobel Feathers, “a renowned publishing house in the United Kingdom.” The morning of her interview comes with series of unfortunate events: not having enough money to book Uber, thus resorting to taking public transport; forgetting her phone at home, and rushing back to get it, thereby missing her first bus. After finally getting to the place, in rain-drenched cloth, she meets a racist receptionist who seems bent on frustrating her life more than it already is by unremorsefully telling her the interview is over, even when it’s not. She is however saved by young Mr Cooper, the son of Oliver Cooper the owner of the publishing house, who takes pity on her, not without acknowledging her stunning beauty. The timely intervention of Mr Cooper secures her opportunity for the interview, although he (Mr Cooper) later leaves, as he’s not part of the interview panel. However, Kambili could not get the job as Taylor Cooper (another son of Oliver Cooper) the CEO of Nobel Feathers, out of a seemingly nameless hatred, if not the fact of her skin colour, outrightly dismisses her on the basis of lack of six years prior work experience. Kambili goes home frustrated, almost dejected. She is consoled by her friend, Amber, a lawyer and daughter of another wealthy white, who loves to hang out.
After staying indoors for some days, persistently applying for jobs in different companies, without anything forthcoming, Amber suggests they both attend a gala which her boss and co-lawyer, Mr Jacob, invites her to. Kambili reluctantly accepts, all the while expressing her hesitation to attend such white-dominated party. At the gala, they meet Mr Cooper, whose name, she later learns, is Harold Cooper, usually referred to as Harry. Their second meeting is rather dramatic, as Harry, again, saves the embarrassed Kambili from Taylor Cooper (after the former mistakenly spills drink on the latter’s suit) by feigning that she’s his date.
At the gala, Harry learns that she didn’t get the job. To console her, he informs her of a new opening for apprenticeship at the company and promises to help her secure it, if she is interested. Excited, Kambili accepts the offer, and that marks the beginning of their friendship, resulting in romantic relationship. Kambili eventually gets the apprenticeship job, but not without facing series of racial taunts from both her supervisor, Mrs Stacey, and her apprentice colleague, Ms Deborah. It turns out that Stacey has a soft spot for Harry Cooper, which causes her to be wary of Kambili’s closeness with Harry Cooper, who has now taken an obvious interest in Kambili, even to the dismay of his family. You see, at the company, just like in other corporate spheres in the United Kingdom, you learn sooner or later that you need to secure your place, lest you’re hauled out. That’s what Stacey desires with Harry Cooper. Hence, she has to do whatever it takes to flush out whatever threat stands in her way, including Kambili, just like Mrs McIntyre does by secretly dating Mr Oliver Cooper to secure the position of Chief of Operations at the Nobel Feathers for herself—I reckon.
Kambili’s relationship with Harry Cooper not only concerns Stacey, but Taylor Cooper, Harry’s brother, as well. One day, Harry asks Kambili out on a date, unknown to her that she’s being invited to one of Harry’s family’s get-together parties which features the crème de la crème of London. When she realises what’s amiss, already too late, her feeling of displacement and inferiority gnaw at her, reminding her that in such gatherings, people of her skin colour, her social background, are usually looked down on. However, not being able to turn back, she attends the party anyway. There, she unexpectedly meets her friend, Amber, and later learns that she (Amber) also knows the Coopers. While in one of the private rooms in the house, Harry and Kambili engage in intense kissing, unaware of the guests coming into the room. The awkward scene results in jibes and, consequently, fisticuffs, between Harry and Taylor, as the latter considers the former’s choice of partner rather condescending. Attempting to intervene, Kambili receives a missed punch which lands her on the floor, injured. This makes her and Amber pass the night at Oliver Cooper’s residence. There, Kambili realises that she nurses a nascent infatuation towards Taylor Cooper, despite his meanness towards her. Although she cannot make much sense of it, she finds herself relishing the brief private moment she has with him. This infatuation later germinates and blossoms into a love that could not be contained by racial nor class barriers.
Living on the margin sometimes means that you get to see things that people at the centre could not see. And some times, such revelations could become complications or solutions to your own problems. In Kambili’s case, the secret she uncovers portends the latter for her problem with Stacey, as well as the discrimination she faces at the Nobel Feathers and the Coopers’ family. At the office, one fateful Sunday noon, after being asked by Stacey to compile a list of guests for the “author’s cruise” which the company is organising to celebrate her best-selling authors, Kambili bumps into Oliver Cooper and Mrs McIntyre having sex on the latter’s office desk. This disclosure, as the culprits try to buy her silence, earns her favour from Mrs McIntyre who, thankfully, is higher in position than her tormenting supervisor, Mrs Stacey. It also earns her the opportunity to be on the guest list for the ‘author’s cruise’ in a luxury cruiser-ship off the Thames. It’s during that cruise that she bumps into Camille, Taylor’s girlfriend, having sex with a young boy. Awed by the sight, although half-drunk, Kambili later kisses Taylor intensely. An incident that marks the turn of her life later in the story.
By a swift turn of event, the relationship, which begins with Harry, ends with Taylor. Oliver Cooper, oppose to such scandalous union, gives Taylor the condition of either marrying Camille or forfeiting his inheritance. Taylor chooses the latter, instead of proceeding with the marriage. He ends the relationship with Camille at their wedding altar in front of everyone while professing his genuine love to Kambili, who had previously ended her relationship with Harry, telling him that she loved his brother. After some months away in France, Taylor appears at Kambili’s doorstep and they unite again in stronger emotional bond.
Amaechi’s keen and rather-colloquial narrative style sustains the readers’ attention. It does not veil its socio-cultural nuance made perforce with the choice of language. While the romance between Kambili Simpson and Harry Cooper, and later Taylor Cooper, serves as the canvas on which the plot is narrated, the racial experiences of Kambili, her search for meaning and essence in a world that seems bent on muddling her identity is the actual portrait the writer paints for the reader. Hence, Kambili’s life is etherised so that we can assess and appreciate not only the overt story of a black immigrant who finds herself in a befuddled romantic drama with a wealthy English family, but also the covert ways racism determines the nature of human relations. But it also helps us understand the part of us that racial difference can hardly touch — our heart, when what is felt is borne out of genuine intention beyond cultural or social leanings.
Amaechi’s narrative style straddles two worlds. The story, although written some worlds away still bears the lingo of the writer’s native slangs. It combines the narrative poignancy of English novelist with contemporary Nigerian socio-lingo. The expression: “…my village people,” used repeatedly by Kambili, is reflective of a peculiar social slang, imbued in the story to capture not just the protagonist’s social background, but also as a signatory of the writer’s linguistic background.
The strength of the novel lies not only in the story it tells (because it tells it well), but also in its attention to details and dramatic twists. Amaechi maximises a good dose of irony to embellish her plot, so that, served the first dose, the reader is jolted to the edge of suspense. But a fault of the story, minute as it may seem, is the absence of courtroom Amber in the entirety of the plot; rather, the Amber we are presented with is the emotional support, extrovert and Kambili’s relationship counsellor. We only know Amber as a lawyer, and that is all there is to her characterisation, outside the author’s designated role, as mentioned earlier. Hence, it appears, Amber’s character is presented only at the whim of the writer, not as a full-fledged personality with an interesting profession. Part of this limitation to character development is reflective of the writer’s preoccupation with the kind of protagonist she desires for her readers.
BIO:
Nket Awaji is a young Nigerian poet, critic and book reviewer. His works have appeared in Afrocritik, Euinoia, Yarnz, Harbor Review, The Nigeria Review, African Writer, Lion and Lilac, Eboquill, and elsewhere.When he is not writing, he teaches English and Literature. He tweets @nketgodwin. He can be contacted via nket96@yahoo.com