Tochi Eze’s This Kind of Trouble holds your palm in a warm but firm grip from its first chapter, and by the last, the heat from its embrace of your hands has travelled around your being. This is a book for anyone curious about the human mind and open to a fictional account of the dynamics of human interaction when love, health and faith are in the mix.
A worried mother seeks her own mother’s counsel on taming the increasingly troublesome nature of her teenage son but the solution proposed unearths an unfinished history that circles rape, murder, forbidden love, pregnant virgins and the punishment of the gods. Curbing the tantrums of a schoolboy born to a successful couple residing in Lagos then leads the family on a journey with stops at Umumilo and Ekwulobia; to the actions of an erratic secretary to a government official luring a white journalist away from his Nigerian cougar through whom he had secured a contract; and to the intrigues that dogged the efforts of two unlikely lovebirds in finding the Nigerian origins of a visibly white man.
Alternating between a past set in a century before, and a present shaped by the psychological by-products of the events that took place many decades prior, This Kind of Trouble provides a nuanced perspective on the odd actions of some of our loved ones, and maybe the not-so-beloved. The author weaves her intimate knowledge of religious circles, her grasp of cultural dynamics, and extensive observation, if not personal experience, to both interrogate and demonstrate what we understand of people with skewed perceptions of reality. The narrative is clear and convincing, likely to leave anyone who has suffered from a mental health episode feeling affirmed, and gifting anyone who hasn’t with a unique insight into a world that can hardly ever be well understood without a personal experience.
As we travel through time with Margaret’s family, Eze uses metaphors to both pave the way and bridge the gap between past cultural norms and contemporary realities. Through imagery, she conveys us to a vantage point where we experience the tensions between relatives fighting to preserve the vestiges of their ways, as representatives of the colonial government, along with purveyors of the new Christian faith, make inroads through education and enlightenment.
When a young Irish priest finds his life at risk for his sexual conduct and the colonial police arrive guns-a-blazing, Eze douses the tension with a pun that thrills without taking off the edge. “The people became themselves again. Each man turned to his left and right, as if to make a head count of who remained, who had not yet fallen to the ground. It was a young cobbler who made the first move. He picked up his footwear and took to his heels…” (page 65-66) certainly reflects the use of imagery in a way that sings, and the book has an abundance of such wordplay.
Beyond that, however, it is impossible to miss the symbolic representation of the clash between science and tradition, and between faith (or superstition) and logic. This dichotomy rears its head in every theme explored in the book, from mental health to love and abandonment.
At its core, This Kind of Trouble is a love story. One that titillates without using many words when it depicts sexual encounters between a famed wrestler and his enamoured maiden in the village or between an interracial couple exploring with their bodies what age disparity and other circumstances would otherwise constrain. But more than that, this book poses an existential question about love that causes one to suffer while mitigating the suffering of another. We see Benjamin confront the guilt of leaving a spouse in the heat of a mental breakdown, when contending with his own unresolved questions and livelihood, and we cannot help but contemplate whether the need for self-preservation exonerates him. Yet, we also ask whether the one who suffers from depression, schizophrenia or other ailments of the mind must be content with whatever sliver of romance they are offered until it is withdrawn, never aspiring to a right to demand fidelity under all circumstances.
Eze proceeds with a balanced rendering of the indiscretions that men and women, young and old, get into, and while we grab the edge of our seats, waiting to see how she resolves the different conflicts she has set in motion, she lures us into becoming the jury over the fate of her characters. For instance, whilst her narrative shows us a reel of people on two ends of a pole: on one end, the perception of mental illness as the manifestation of a curse and on the other end, as a biological infirmity. It is left to us to draw our own conclusions on the remote and immediate causes of the suffering we see, as well as the viability of the relief presented.
This, to me, reflects the author’s acknowledgement of humanity’s limits in understanding and accepting either science or the supernatural. This, among other musings that a conscientious reader is bound to engage in, in Eze’s debut novel, makes it a gripping tale.
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Tobi Adebowale is a lawyer and occasional writer with a keen interest in mental health.
