Fifty Books Project 2023

 

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

 

I was surprised to learn that this novel won a PEN/Faulkner Award.  I enjoyed it, but was not exactly impressed.  It is in the category of novel that is worthwhile because it conveys a slice of the world I was not fully aware of.  The prose is serviceable but never something you want to dwell on, and there were times in this plot-centered story that I skimmed the prose, anxious to find out what was about to happen.

 

Jende Jonga and his wife are immigrants from Cameroon.  Jende has stayed beyond the limits of his three-month visa, and has concocted a story about his in-laws trying to kill him to get asylum.  In fact, his in-laws did have him thrown in prison when he and Neni fell in love, but now that he has brought Neni and their child to America, they are more forgiving.  I found it disconcerting that Jende was so obviously trying to game the system, especially since the immigration situation stays in the background for much of the novel.   The characters in the novel do not have neatly packaged morals, but what is meant to be complex sometimes comes across as contradictory.  Aside from his immigration plans, Jende is portrayed as a moral and honest man.

 

That honesty is important to his employer.   In the early pages of the novel, Jende is hired as a chauffer for Clark Edwards, an important executive in Lehmann Brothers.  The novel is set in 2007 and 2008, so Clark’s job gets increasingly tense, just before it disappears.  Clark works long hours, goes to meetings all over New York and frequently talks about important business on his cell phone.  It is important that Jende learn to be discreet and the two men develop a close bond of trust.

 

That bond becomes more important as we get to know Clark’s wife, Cindy, a fiercely loyal and devoted mother who handles the stress of parenting with drugs and wine.  Neni gets occasional work as a housekeeper in the Edwards home – sometimes in the luxury Manhattan apartment, and sometimes at their home in the Hamptons.  Their children, Vince (who drops out of law school to pursue enlightenment in India early in the novel) and  Mighty (an insecure nine-year old), quickly bond with the Jonga family and for a time we have the trope of the happy working class family of color, unburdened by the stresses that haunt the wealthy white family.

 

Soon, Neni is hiding details of Cindy’s drugs and drinking from Clark, while Jende is covering for Clark’s frequent trips to a brothel.   When Cindy discovers Jende has been lying to her about her husband’s itinerary, she forces Clark to fire him.  The Jongas happiness is endangered – without work, Jende will not be able to keep the family in America.

 

At this point in the book the strength of the characterization is seriously undermined.  Jende, who has been an understanding if somewhat old-fashioned husband, becomes an outright dictatorial sexist.  Neni, who had been caring, highly moral and concerned with Cindy’s health and her family’s happiness, suddenly blackmails Cindy to get enough cash to pay for immigration lawyers.  Cindy had seemed stable but now crashes into full-blown junkie-dysfunction.  Clark survives the collapse of Lehmann to work for Barclays, but never wakes up to take care of his family. 

 

While he had been willing to do anything to stay in America, Jende suddenly gives up on his plan to get asylum.  The novel ends with Cindy’s suicide and the Jongas returning to Cameroon.

 

The idea of planting an immigrant narrator as witness to the Lehmann collapse is intriguing, but Mboe does not do much with it.  Jende stays distant from the workings of the collapse and it ends up having little effect on the Edwards family – unless we accept the notion that the stress of the collapse sent Clark into the arms of a sex worker 4 or 5 times a week and that his infidelity drove Cindy to drugs.  

 

The immigrant perspective is well-handled as we toggle from Jende’s point of view to Neni’s.  Their differing perspectives and stresses round out the portrait of the community, though that portrait remains underdeveloped in spots.  This is a novel that I was prepared to genuinely like at the three-quarter mark, but the ending felt more like an attempt to cut tings off than to conclude the story of these characters.