A Nigerian writer, Racheal Oboh’s new novel, A Brief Schedule, can be described as ‘packs a punch’. It explores identity, family, friendship, love, forgiveness and acceptance, consistency, perseverance, and barriers, among other topics.
Following the publication of her highly successful debut play, The Archival Box, which has been translated into Chinese and French, the author needed to change the narrative of the menace of preference for male children, which “punishes women for circumstances beyond their control and puts wives under tremendous pressure to bear male children,” thus making them feel inferior to their female children.
The author deftly explores all these issues through the lives of the characters in her debut play.
In A Brief Schedule, given the author’s background as a lawyer, she also loves creative writing and has successfully imbued Oyebode, the protagonist, as a lawyer in the novel.
Oyebode experiences the common family financial hardship of not having enough money for his education. During those times, family love remained strong.
This book also touches on what it is like to act as a parent to a child when you are not the biological mother. It really hits hard.
Though still young and inexperienced, he began his career in a big law firm in Lagos. His boss, Mquio, belittles and degrades him, and some of his colleagues make fun of him in the courtroom.
Changes begin when Mquio assigns 12 client case files to Oyebode, putting him in charge. He became a chronic workaholic.
When reading the novel, some characters like Mquio, will get on your nerves. Regardless, the way the book turned out to show that forgiveness was all Mquio needed at the end is massive.
The way Oyebode and Royal reconnect at different stages is wired but interesting. It makes one want to know what next? What will happen?
The story is well-written. What happened to Royal’s family during the Nigerian-Biafran War was seen in this book.
There was someone out there plotting the main character’s downfall and eventually, he was accused of rape. A Brief Schedule also reflects our reality in work environment that is sometimes volatile.
