Here is a review of Jude Dibia's controversial debut 'Walking With Shadows' that I Wrote for the Nigerian Tribune in 2007.It was my first attempt at writing a review, so guys pardon the errors.Do not spare me all the same. Do let me know what you think.
Walking with Shadows
JUDE Dibia calls his readers to join the fray in the debate on the propriety or otherwise of homosexuality; there is no sitting on the fence. In reading Walking With Shadows, one is confronted with that oft-avoided issue of homosexuality despite its increasing pervasiveness and the hushed but hypocritical treatment accorded it.
The protagonist, Adrian, is a successful business executive whose queer sexual orientation (a jealously guarded secret) is betrayed by a vengeful, fraudulent co-worker, Tayo who is seeking to exact his pound of the flesh for the loss of his job. Consequently, the peace of Adrian’s home is shattered by the revelation, driving a wedge between Adrian and his wife, Ada.
As much as Adrian tries to keep a straight life and bury an inextricable part of him to please those he loves the most, that part seems implacable, sticking out like a sore thumb. His wife, Ada finds herself in a quandary when an anonymous caller breaks the unsettling news of his kinky sexual orientation. She is inconsolable and like Adrian’s sexuality, she will not be appeased.It commences with Adrian’s futile attempt at discarding his painful childhood and all that reminds him (his name, Ebele which he jettisons for Adrian) of the unsavoury treatment at his hands of those closest to him i.e. his folks and his siblings, Chika and Chiedu.
The paradoxes and contradictions at the heart of contemporary Nigerian culture are also brought to the fore in this groundbreaking work. Gay men for the love of those they love choose to keep their sexual orientation under wraps so as not to hurt them; while those they purportedly love feel hurt the most when the lid is eventually blown over their best kept secret. “How will I face my family? I don’t want to lose my wife and kid?” Adrian keeps asking himself when his gay orientation becomes public knowledge. Abdul to whom Adrian runs to for succour provides a sublime riposte to Adrian’s telling question: “Everyday in a gay man’s life, he is constantly hurt by the people he loves the most. His family. His friends. And even the society.”
Jude deftly impresses a telling irony on his readers, which cannot elude them: the society is quick to denounce and chide gay men and lesbians yet it cannot provide a panacea to a condition it deems aberrant. Pastor Matthew, the whip-wielding Pentecostal exorcist typifies this absurdity when he resorts to a laughable solution-flaying Adrian to no end ostensibly to expel the ‘offending’ demon -while his brother Chiedu looks on. Yet the only reprieve that Adrian finds in the midst of his turmoil is in the company of Abdul and Femi both gay couples. Still grappling with the imbalance created in his marriage, he suddenly finds himself in Champagne a tryst for gay men where he meets Yahaya, an unabashedly married homosexual. Yahaya though married flaunts his sexuality, propositioning Adrian who is desperate to resolve the myriad of conflicts agitating his mind.
Expectedly, Adrian becomes the subject of office gossips and grapevine chatters further hardening the reluctance of Ada in coming to terms with his condition. Ada who has always prided herself on being tolerant and broadminded, finds her self-professed liberality challenged by the disclosure. She does not miss the irony of trading in exotic artworks while hesitating to embrace the cultural values that underpin their aesthetic beauty.
Ada’s cousin Nkechi who facilitates the meeting of Ada and Adrian in the first place is equally confused when she discovers that her son Junior is enamored of dolls. She gets hysterical and in a fit of anger slaps her son. She discovers that she is paranoid; mooting the hunch, that Junior is gay. Obi her husband sternly shrugs off the hunch.The seeming ubiquity of homosexuality is brought frighteningly home to a distraught Ada when she is introduced to Carol, Temi and Hajiya, three women who are bond by the fact that they have gay spouses. Iheoma, Ada’s friend is of the opinion that meeting the trio will help her come to terms with her husband’s homosexuality but her meeting further rankles her. Adrian subsequently finds a loyal ally in Rotimi, a protégé who is confused about his own sexual orientation. For Adrian, the only plausible explanation he gets for his folks’ mild ostracism during his childhood is their realization that he is different from his two siblings, Chika and Chinedu. Chika eventually comes to his aid, reciprocating a sacrificial gesture by rescuing him from Pastor Matthew’s Pentecostal nostrum.
The novel peaks when Adrian and Ada part amicably, freeing the former from his marital vows. Adrian finally relocates to saner climes tolerant of his sexuality to start a new life. His past, ever implacable, this time resurrects, rushing back in torrents when ‘Ebele’ is jolted back to life at the airport.
Jude Dibia, in Walking With Shadows, takes on widely held norms and convictions with an audacity that few of his contemporaries can summon. He tells a riveting story in a graceful style that is shorn of clattering details and bland moralizing. His haunting plot prods the reader to pause and take a renewed, painstaking look at the vexed issues of homosexuality, discrimination and our concomitant pretensions to tolerance.While homosexuality is viewed as a taboo and criminalized in this part, it thrives despite the hypocritical stance of the society. The book makes fleeting allusions to instances where suspected gay men were lynched by fanatical hordes intent on visiting God’s judgment on the ‘sexual perverts’. This rabid recourse to jungle justice that is rife overlooks the equally repugnant crime of violating the privacy of others.
The universality of the themes that the book addresses is obvious. Sibling rivalry, intolerance, jealousy and religious bigotry are irritants to which the society has become annoyingly inured. This is a work that is evidently ahead of its time at least by popular standards. However, there are nagging questions that the book inadvertently throws up: is homosexuality genetic? Is it a medical condition that can be resolved? Are kids gay from childhood? One equally fears that subsequent works of the writer may live under the shadow of this groundbreaking debut—a challenge to the author to churn out more daring work that will better his first offering.For this, rare embodiment of boldness and daring, Jude Dibia is assured a well –deserved place in the pantheon of the third generation of Nigerian novelists. Chris Dunton could not have been more right.
