THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK BY CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

“You laughed with your uncle and you felt at home in his house; his wife called you nwanne, sister, and his two school-age children called you aunty. They spoke Igbo and ate garri for lunch and it was like home. Until your uncle came into the cramped basement where you slept with old boxes and cartons and pulled you forcefully to him, squeezing your buttocks, moaning. He wasn’t really your uncle; he was actually a brother of your father’s sister’s husband, not related by blood. After you pushed him away, he sat on your bed- it was his house, after all-and smiled and said you were no longer a child at twenty two. If you let him, he would do many things for you. Smart women did it all the time. How did you think those women back in Lagos with well-paying jobs made it? Even women in new York?” *THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK*



I remember rubbing by hands against each other as I sat across that man that Monday morning. My whole body awake with tiny Goosebumps and the anger rushed through my blood cells as I was sweating immensely. I literally felt my blood pressure shoot. I felt sorry for myself… the person that had asked me to drop my application at this man’s office was so excited, she had told me the man had helped her niece with getting a banking job and I was excited because I too had dreamt of getting one. She told me to wear my best clothes and smell good, with pure intentions I did just that. Because I really needed that job or else my whole life would be on pause.

But I got the shock of my life when the man stared me in the face and asked 21 year old me to go out with him, I knew right away that that was the ultimatum of getting the job. He wanted me to sleep with him. I sat there feeling stripped and embarrassed, at first starring at his computer then the picture perfectly seated on his desk of his two children, a boy and girl. The little girl was smiling at someone and I wondered if it was her father, I wondered if she held him in such high esteem and if she still would at this moment when he wanted to take advantage of a needy 21 year old. I wondered if he would hold the man that would in future ask his daughter the same thing that he was asking of me in high esteem.

But what beat me up so bad, was the fact that I had the qualifications to get the job, I was not asking him to perform a magic trick by giving me a job I wasn’t qualified to do. I was qualified. I sat there long enough to say no, that I wasn’t available to go out with him, that I had things to do. I sat there long enough to hear him say “come and see me when you are available to go out.”

Shaking my head vigorously, I left that office and building feeling defeated. But my mother taught me to always hold my head up high, so I did. Until I left the building at least.

But the tears began to fall immediately I shut the door behind me and was embraced by the warmth of the sun. I cried because for the first time in my life, an adult had failed me. That day, was my introduction into the real world. As I walked the streets of Lusaka I too felt SOMETHING AROUND MY NECK. It wanted to choke me, no matter how hard I cried I was feeling choked…..

The book is a collection of 13 short stories. The stories are of different people from different works of life facing different situations. Some are relatable others are not.

The titles of the stories are;

· Cell one

· Imitation

· A private experience

· Ghosts

· On Monday of last week

· Jumping monkey hill

· The thing around your neck

· The American embassy

· The shivering

· The arrangers of marriage

· Tomorrow is too far

· The headstrong historian

The stories are all different but they have one thing in common all the characters in the novel had stories that took away something from them. They all had stories that made their life unattractive. It’s as though they all wore something around their neck that was squeezing the life out of them. The quote that I have used is from the main story of the book. Chimamanda tells this story in a different style, it’s as though there is a person telling the main character how she feels. And I really didn’t know that you could tell a story that way.

On the flip side I felt like some of the stories were repeated from stories that I had already read by her. Some stories were set in Nsukka, and I somehow just felt like I was reading a continuation of purple hibiscus. Some stories talked about love and America and I just felt like oh well… Americanah. I think I whole heartedly enjoyed the two books that I registered it in my brain that none of her work would compete with them.

But she did do an excellent job on stories like IMITATION and THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK. I obviously came to the conclusion that I’m not a fun of short stories because they leave a lot of things unsaid.

With that said I do not think I will be reading any other short story in a while, but do not hesitate to add this book to your list. Maybe our different eyes could actually read differently. Have you read the book?

Would love to hear from you.