Sorrow and Joy During the Pandemic
If you are seeking something warm and fuzzy, Blurry Lines is what you need. This is a complete story of sorrow and joy during the pandemic in 2020. Tayo Emmanuel dedicates the book to survivors, key workers, citizens, and love. Yes, it features COVID-19 as the author manages to keep it in the background while focusing on the other unknowns.
Nathan Araba, a successful doctor based in Lagos, is guarded against romance, having lost his wife and left to bring up two children. He goes to London, to visit his younger brother David and wife, Maria, who had been his friend from University days. David gets a cough which seems minor until he is hospitalized and diagnosed with Coronavirus. David eventually dies.
Things take a dark turn in the Araba household as Nathan now has to stay behind with his two children to take care of David’s funeral, his wife and son, Bruno. Maria is emotionally distraught and withdrawn from the other family members, neglecting her pre-teenage son, Bruno, who is also hurting. It is this inner turmoil beclouding the entire Araba household that leads the story and the obvious sorrow is the conflict of the novel. Where does joy come in?
A pleasant distraction arrives in the form of Zoe, the next door neighbor who is now the only adult Nathan can have meaningful conversations with during lockdown. The back garden become the playground for everyone except Maria. Zoe is White, young, vivacious and playful; the opposite of Nathan. Although Zoe lifts his mood and gets on with the children, he rejects any idea of a relationship with her because of the obvious differences. Nathan is Black, middle-aged, conservative and lives in Nigeria and he doesn’t believe in casual relationships. While seeking to douse her pain, Maria throws herself at Nathan in a moment of emotional connection and physical desire.
It is very easy to empathize with Nathan as a male protagonist, as the author reveals the depth of his feelings while he tries to shift from friend to brother-in-law with Maria and as he struggles with making decisions about the multiple challenges he faces: to be a loving parent to his children, a comforter and provider to the family his brother left behind, and an unlikely lover to Zoe.
This is not a cookie-cutter romance, but the conclusion is truly satisfying. Emmanuel does an outstanding job of focusing on the characters and not the pandemic. I particularly like the angle of the male protagonist, a departure from everyday romance fiction. The characters are well-developed and the story is fresh, inspiring and highly emotional. It is filled with plenty moments of comic activities and intrigues.
