BookBrowse Reviews Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi

BookBrowse:

In a fictional fifteenth-century West Africa, a young woman is plucked away from her lowly station of blacksmith to become a fearsome ruler's bride; however, underneath the royal city's splendor and wealth, she must learn to navigate its treachery.

After the conquest of port city Timbuktu by the king of Yorùbáland, nineteen-year-old Òdòdó is kidnapped from her mother, Okόbí, and their blacksmiths' guild to Ṣàngótè, the capital. There, she discovers that a charming stranger she earlier entranced with her trader's song while crafting one of her special silver daffodils is the current ruler, or Alàáfin, of Yorùbáland: Àrèmo. Elevating her from blacksmith, an impoverished working class status scorned for being the domain of unmarried women, Àrèmo decrees that she will be his bride. Òdòdó agrees to marry him only after he brings Okόbí to the royal city to share in her newfound wealth and social status.

Though Òdòdó has Àrèmo's love and affection, her new role as the Alàáfin's betrothed is unstable. Derided for her blacksmith's background, she must learn to navigate the intrigue and shaky political alliances of the royal city and eventually fight for her survival against rebels, conquered slaves, and rival states — forces of resistance formed in opposition to Yorùbáland's warmongering. Meanwhile, the search for her mother, who has gone missing, drags on as a blacksmiths' strike spreads throughout Yorùbáland.

In this setting based on fifteenth-century West African society, following Òdòdó as she takes up the helm of her story in first-person narration is thrilling. While others see her as nothing more than uncultured, fragile, and (initially) illiterate, Òdòdó's growth into a resourceful and clever chessmaster, revealed through intimate access to her thoughts, scheming, and determination, makes Masquerade engrossing. She teases out intricate networks of overlooked knowledge, becoming Àrèmo's unofficial advisor by channeling to him the important politics and news the wives of powerful men casually drop during daily gossip. When Àrèmo confines her to her room, Òdòdó has two slave children relay her information. Òdòdó's attitude towards her kidnapping is fascinatingly pragmatic. Though she berates Àrèmo for treating her like "entertainment" and a "commodity" to whisk away for his own "enjoyment," she clasps onto her elevated status as a way out of impoverishment. She is never enthralled by either naive romanticism or illusions of selflessness.

No less captivating are the female characters surrounding Òdòdó in her new environs. Soon after her arrival in Ṣàngótè, Òdòdó seeks out the friendship and guidance of Kòlò, Àrèmo's first wife from a political union. Kòlò's bold wit and affectionate nickname for Òdòdó, "little flower," give a seemingly picture-perfect first impression of her. But belying her bold words of self-deprecating jest — "you need not compete with me for Àrèmo's affection…when our wedding night did not yield any children…I suppose he was so distraught at the prospect of having to lay with me again that he went to find a better wife to give him sons" — is an underlying bitterness and sense of inadequacy, a preemptive hedging that Òdòdó, still a newcomer to double-dealing, fails to register. In this way, moments of supposed sisterhood and solidarity are invested with a suspenseful undercurrent of interpersonal unrest and volatile instability.

Masquerade's depiction of motherhood is compelling, too, precisely because it is unidealized. The mother-daughter relationship, often traditionally considered a source of warmth, is venomous between Òdòdó and Okόbí — Okόbí's parenting is at best authoritative tough love and at worst emotionally and physically abusive. Early on, when she catches Òdòdó speaking to a mysterious man who is only later disclosed to be Àrèmo, Okόbí slaps her daughter and berates her: "Evil child, is it not enough to cause me misery? Must you allow a man to make your own life miserable as well?" Yet the continued barrage ("Listen well—that sorry story does not need to be told twice") reveals a mother projecting her own traumatic relationship with men onto her child. Her violent and abrasive overprotectiveness, though deplorable, is an attempted correction to her experience of abuse. Simultaneously, Òdòdó remains steadfast about reuniting with her mother, repeatedly crossing the Alàáfin in his fervent desire to marry immediately, postponing the stability that their union would afford. Maternity is ambiguous and nuanced, collapsing the polarization of love and hate, resentment and gratitude, protectiveness and animosity.

Àrèmo's passion for Òdòdó launches Masquerade's plot and creates propulsive dramatic tension. Though Àrèmo is a charismatic man of charming words, bold displays of romance, and martial prowess, for Òdòdó, he is a growing source of frustration and rage. He falls for her trader's song and silver daffodils but remains condescending towards the profession that made these possible, valuing the fruits of blacksmiths' labor and metalcraft while denigrating them as "witches." Òdòdó finds herself constantly managing his mistrust — he takes her meeting with the royal city's blacksmiths as perfidious longing for her previous station. Learning that the guards assigned to protect her are also responsible for surveilling her and reporting back to Àrèmo, Òdòdó is forced to contrive moments of privacy. As the novel progresses, it leans into Òdòdó's suppressed fury arising from how her heroic contributions to Yorùbáland's wellbeing are attributed to Àrèmo.

Beyond these characters and their convoluted political and personal entanglements that are the core of Masquerade's thrill, the book's atmosphere and locale are immersive. The setting, filtered through Òdòdó's wonderment as she takes in the sights of her new surroundings in Ṣàngótè, is extravagant, comprised of lush and elaborate descriptions of tempestuous royal elephants, gold-encrusted architecture, expensive clothes, and religious fanfare centered on the fickle Òrìṣàs (see Beyond the Book). With these seductive displays of opulence, it's no wonder Òdòdó is magnetized towards Àrèmo. With his love tightly bound to these spectacular performances of power, it's no wonder she is gradually hungry to claim those performances in her own name, even at the cost of masking her true intentions and feelings with disingenuous smiles. And with its multifaceted characters within a vibrant but subtly dangerous Yorùbáland, it's no wonder Masquerade is spellbinding.

This review first ran in the July 31, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.