Bridgette A Lacy
THE SEASONS OF BEENTO BLACKBIRD by Akosua Busia (Hutchinson, R97,95)
IMAGINE a man who is “a broad-shouldered six- foot-four silhouette headed across the tarmac like a panther on the prowl . Focused. Upright. Full of power.” Did I mention that this man spends winters with one wife on a Caribbean island and summers with another in a village in Ghana? This guy’s got everything, until summer wife meets winter wife and then comes a hurricane.
The Seasons of Beento Blackbird is the first novel by Akosua Busia, the Ghana-born actress who played Nettie in the movie The Color Purple. In this beautifully crafted love story, we meet Solomon Eustace Wilberforce, a children’s author who travels the globe in search of tales to weave into his books. In the off-seasons, he holes up in his Harlem apartment to write, under the pseudonym Beento Blackbird.
Solomon is the kind of man any woman could fall in love with. Frankly, I did. His loving is intense, physically and mentally. He appreciates the women down to their bones.
His two wives are happy to get his attention. Miriam, his Caribbean wife, the midwife who delivered him when she was nine years old, has a ritual for his visits. She sees him on the second night of his return, and their reunion is always signaled by rain.
His African wife, Ashia’s whole family – a small village – comes out to welcome Solomon, and catch up on what’s happened between visits. After he’s soaked in his wife’s company and gathered a fresh supply of stories from the village, he dashes off to New York to write.
Each wife knows about the other and accepts the arrangement, but they’re not happy. As time wears on, they realise they’re paying a price. Solomon must make a decision, and being the extraordinary people they all are, it’s one they can all live with. And so can we.