Nearly All The Men In Lagos Are Mad
Book Review by Miwrites
Let me take you back to the first time you read the title “Nearly All The Men In Lagos Are Mad.” Did you nod in agreement and start to recount the experiences you’ve had with Lagos men?
Maybe like Comedian Acapella, you felt misrepresented and thought of how Lagos boys must have used Damilare’s eyes to see shege for her to come up with a title like that.
Or did you feel that this book was written specifically to shade men and shake your head?
Whatever you thought, I’m sure it would have ignited a curiosity in you to find out the book’s content.
From the first suspenseful sentence of the first short story, I knew this book would definitely be one of a kind.
“One night, you will calmly put a knife to your husband’s penis and promise to cut it off.”
This sentence left me wondering what could drive a woman to make such threats. I read Isi’s story, which unfolded slowly. She started by giving detailed descriptions of the face-me-I-face-you house she lived in with her husband and child. She then explored the life-changing event leading to her husband’s sudden change and her repeated threats to cut off his penis and use it for rituals if he didn’t move out of the house. This time, she said it in the presence of his family.
Another woman with similar anger was in the tale of Dele’s wife. She said — amongst other terrible things — that “If we ever meet again, only one of us will leave the encounter unharmed.” This leaves me wondering why exactly Dele couldn’t just tell his wife the one problem he had.
Why did he have to play the patient and caring husband? Why did he have to fake being the intentional man, booking all the doctor’s appointments and paying them to lie about his impotence? She had to suffer for the longest time looking for ways to have a child, bursting into uncontrollable tears at the news of another’s fertile womb carrying a child and planning her life in hopes of a child that can not come through an impotent husband. That simple revelation would have saved her so much hardship and bitterness.
In the end, Dele gained nothing. His wife went back to cleaning people’s mess at the General hospital in Sabo after Dele made her life a mess. Yes, we’ve all heard the cliché fear women, but omo, going through this book has taught me to fear men. Shebi, you see what I mean?
This book’s constant feeling is sadness. Sadness at the fate that has befallen yet another woman due to an encounter with a Lagos man. One of the female characters who got tired of the disappointments of Lagos men thought she had seen the light and, in her own words,
“it’s bright, and so white”.
She made a decision to go for oyinbo men. With thirteen good weeks of her life, she went from the mainland to the island on a wild goose chase, after which she started to think that the madness might be in the Lagos air, possessing every man who sets foot in it.
The good thing is the book isn’t all sad. There are love stories like that of Uchenna and Yejide, that met on a Lagos-bound airplane. From the very first day they met, they had a thing for each other.
There’s also that of Sadiq and Layo, who met after a band performance in which he was a lead singer. They enjoyed each other’s company and vibed so well that he even got to meet her parents. Hanhan, wetin remain now? But this Lagos man wasn’t a man of love, although not the Indaboski kind. He just didn’t know how to love because he had not healed from his painful past. It was impossible to give his all to love as he was scared and scarred. Hence, the relationship didn’t work out, and we had our love story in the mud.
The relationship of Uchenna and Yejide fell through too. Uche’s mum, who has served as mother and father to him since his dad died, did not find her worthy of her son. He, too, wasn’t prepared to fight that battle and make his own decision, and Jide wasn’t ready to take trash from anyone. She worked for a magazine, not LAWMA. It was sad, though, and I wish it didn’t end that way.
This book of fiction found a way to give itself life through various suitable narrative techniques, relatable settings, and the use of familiar language to talk about the reality of the lives of many women and men in Lagos. It had all the ingredients needed to keep the reader glued to the end and gave me something to think and talk about, even after it ended.
It was easy to picture most of the characters and feel their pain, heartbreak, and anger. The journey from UNILAG gate to Jibowu, Sabo, Lekki, Ikeja, Abule Egba, Opebi through the traffic and the hustle in twelve short stories to conclude that nearly all the men in Lagos are mad was worth it. I enjoyed every moment of it.
Contrary to what the title might have made you assume, the madness captured in the book wasn’t that of the Lagos men alone, as Lagos itself is a place of madness.
From the cheating husband to the closeted gay hiding under the shadows of straight marriage, the man living a double life that revealed madness in its different colours, the Mummy GO in denial, the frenemy and the backstabber that showed the different levels of madness. Every single story was worth it. However, the last story should have come with a trigger warning to notify readers of the upsetting content.
