Ademola is a wealthy businessman who takes good fortune for granted, ‘as though it were impossible that it would abide for only a spell’. His wife Yeye, on the other hand, feels life is ‘a series of battles with the occasional spell of good things’. Lagos-born author Ayòbámi Adébáyò shows us Yeye’s devastating but sometimes dazzling view of reality in her second novel, a sequined, scarred story of haves and have-nots in corrupt modern Nigeria.

Wuraola is a young doctor working night shifts fueled by energy drinks while the hospital struggles with power outages. Her mother, Yeye, fawns over Wuraola’s boyfriend; although he’s argumentative and sexist, Yeye is thrilled at the prospect of her daughter getting engaged to someone with rich parents. Yeye buys golden gowns at auntie Caro’s dressmaking shop, where she meets Eniola, obediently serving his apprenticeship when he’s not being flogged at the local school.  

Adébáyò calmly stitches together the complicated patchwork of their lives, avoiding mawkishness, and backtracking to give context to the good and bad spells they’re experiencing. A passage where an embarrassed Eniola must pretend to be a mute orphan as he panhandles between cars to make rent money would be much less powerful if we hadn’t earlier seen him enjoying a house with a VCR and indoor bathroom before his dad lost his job.  

While details of ornate gele head wraps and fragrant bowls of peppered soup add layers of incredible colour to Adébáyò’s tale, you can feel the visceral threat of violence and destruction crackling under the surface from early on, even in lighter scenes of family squabbles or lavish parties. This is a wisely observed, gripping and bleak story, with glowing moments of kindness and comedy among the tough times. 

A Spell Of Good Things is published on Thursday 9 February.