Son of the House

About the book

“We must do something to pass the time, I thought. Two women in a room, hands and feet tied.”

Kidnapped in Nigeria by a group not unlike Boko Haram, two women, Nwabulu and Julie, relate the stories of the very different lives fate has meted out for them.

When Nwabulu’s father dies, her stepmother sends her off to become a housemaid. For years, she suffers the abuse of employers, a love affair with an employer’s son offering little comfort. Out of their union a son is born, but the young Nwabulu has to give him up, and is bound to suffer in her stepmother’s home again until she can flee, establishing herself as a fashion designer, and finally able to inhabit Julie’s world.

Julie: privileged, educated, and adored by her parents. She has the...