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Twenty years on, Vera’s love story has not lost its freshness
TITLE: Whispers from Vera
AUTHOR: Goretti Kyomuhendo
PUBLISHER: African Writers Trust
REVIEWER: Mbugua Ngunjiri
On the cover of Whispers from Vera, it says that this is the 20th anniversary edition. Reading the book, I had trouble accepting that it had been in existence for twenty years. There’s no way, a book so captivating, is coming to our attention, this year....
These questions became more pronounced with every page I turned until I came across the postscript. This is where I learned that the book, published by Monitor Publications, in Uganda, went out of print in 2004. Whispers from Vera went out of print around the time when another Ugandan woman writer, Doreen Baingana, was making waves in the literary world through her book, Tropical Fish, which won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Africa in 2006.
Unfortunately, Goretti Kyomuhendo's book went out of print when other women writers in Africa were beginning to make their mark. They include Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus), Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Weight of Whispers), Monica Arac de Nyeko (Jambula Tree), and Zukiswa Wanner (The Madams). I said unfortunately because Whispers from Vera would have competed favorably with offerings from these other writers. Whispers has the chatty, almost gossipy conversational style of Chimamanda's Purple Hibiscus and especially Americannah. Goretti's book arrests the reader, right from the very beginning, when Vera breathlessly discloses that she has finally found 'the man' of her life.
As a reader, you automatically know that Vera is the type of character you want to get close to and know better. Here is a person who bares her all: her desires, her anxieties, her triumphs, and even her frailties. Vera voices her secret anxiety about the lack of sexual intimacy with Eric, even though they have been a couple for three months! This secret concern grows into a near panic when Eric plans to introduce Vera to his parents before they even have sex.
Moralists would by now be judging Vera for being obsessed with sex, which is 'un-lady-like'. Well, the fact of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of couples partake in sex on the very first night/day. The most a new couple goes without getting sexually intimate is probably a week. So, moralists, keep off. At work, Vera badly wants a promotion, and the only way of achieving that is by accumulating more academic papers. She gives two examples of people currently doing well at their places of work, attributing it to the fact that they have more than one degree.
There is Ella, a Kenyan, working in their company, who now heads the personnel department, and Eric, who is a manager at his workplace. That makes Vera put in extra hours to study for an online course, not to expand her knowledge, but to get a promotion. In the end, she flunks in her online studies but is determined to pour in more resources and time to redo the paper, if only to get that promotion. Luck comes in a different form when her boss recommends her for a promotion to the company’s regional headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. She is initially hesitant to take up the promotion, seeing she had failed that online course.
The fact that she wins the promotion in Dakar, lays to waste the unhealthy obsession with paper qualifications as a prerequisite for a promotion. Her boss, being her immediate supervisor, knows her potential; that's why she recommended Vera for the promotion, even as Vera was doubting herself. On the topic of paper qualifications, there is a reason why Ella, one of two degree holders, is a Kenyan. Well, the period covered in the book witnessed an exodus of Kenyan students seeking to advance their studies in Uganda's institutions of higher learning. Some of them landed jobs in Uganda, courtesy of their papers. Such is the preoccupation of Kenyan employers with papers that it spawned an insidious culture of students paying others to do their academic work. To date, Kenyans are notorious for researching and writing academic work for students in foreign universities.
Back to Vera and Eric. The couple is now cohabiting after she fell pregnant before they could walk down the aisle. Remember the sex she was pining for... Well, it only happened once and bang, she became heavy with child. Their relationship is not without hiccups. For one, Eric defers to his mother, a wealthy but divorced Kampala businesswoman, much to Vera's ire. She, in the process discovers Eric’s hidden secret, which nearly ends the 'marriage'. Vera moves out with her infant son. In storming off, Vera comes across as one prone to headstrong behavior. Surely, how can she walk out of a marriage, because of a child… one your husband sired with another woman before you came into the picture? But then, you realize that different people react differently to different situations. The author is simply presenting us with a flawed character; but aren't we all flawed?
The author has a way of bringing out social issues and human foibles without being preachy and belaboring points. In Halima, we see a modestly educated woman who is happy, contented in a polygamous marriage. Halima is not only wise—according to Vera—but earthy and practical too. She is the one who saves the day when Vera is in labour,taking her to a cheaper maternity facility, albeit with rude staff, when the classy Epitome hospital refuses to admit her without a cash deposit—a very familiar story with many private medical facilities. When the country’s economy begins to bite—hallo Kenyans!—companies downsize and Halima becomes a victim of the chop. She resigns herself to her fate, and instead of whining and drowning herself in a pity party, she opts to go to the village and restart life as a farmer.
Then there is Samson, husband of Sheila, Vera's best friend, a brilliant economist and career person, who succumbs to the allure of politics and the promise of being appointed Finance minister, through patronage, how else? He quits his job, campaigns for and clinches the MP post through rigging, but fails to land his coveted cabinet perch. When he is made minister of a backwater docket, he is sacked after three months! Samson stares ruin in the face, as his savings are wiped out by the campaigns while chances of him going back into employment are slim - who would employ a disgraced minister? Don’t we all know people who poured all their investments into politics, only to lead miserable lives, when they failed to capture the positions they were gunning for?
Now Eric, Vera’s husband. Well, he is generally a good person, apart from being a Mama's boy—to the mother and the baby mama. Despite being brought up by a strong independent woman, he overreacts when Vera exercises her financial independence and buys a piece of land to put up a family home. He even threatens divorce! Toxic masculinity? To his credit, Eric accepts Vera taking up her promotion in Senegal. One issue though: from the story, Vera is a career woman, a senior one at that. So, how come she had to endure the indignity of giving birth in a low-class maternity hospital? Doesn't she have a medical cover at her place of work, for her to rely solely on Eric's cover?
Are women in Uganda, especially professional women, not accorded medical cover? That part of the story seems a bit contrived. But that is about the only flaw in an otherwise excellent book. Hopefully, Goretti is working on a sequel to Whispers from Vera, just as the book promises. That's the only way readers can hope to unravel the secret behind the separation of Eric's parents.
The book is also available as an Audiobook On the eKitabu App. Download from the Google Play Store and enjoy listening to the story.
Follow the steps below
Steps to download and Listen
- Sign Up or Sign In to shop.eKitabu.com email or Google)
- Search Whispers From Vera on the search bar
- Add to the cart and proceed to checkout
- Download the 'On eKitabu' App on Google Play Store
- Sign in using the same account you used on shop.ekitabu.com.
- Navigate to 'My bookshelf' within the app. You should see the Whispers From Vera audiobook there.
- Download it and enjoy Listening
- Explore other audiobooks and share feedback
Twenty years on, Vera’s love story has not lost its freshness
TITLE: Whispers from Vera
AUTHOR: Goretti Kyomuhendo
PUBLISHER: African Writers Trust
REVIEWER: Mbugua Ngunjiri
On the cover of Whispers from Vera, it says that this is the 20th anniversary edition. Reading the book, I had trouble accepting that it had been in existence for twenty years. There’s no way, a book so captivating, is coming to our attention, this year....
These questions became more pronounced with every page I turned until I came across the postscript. This is where I learned that the book, published by Monitor Publications, in Uganda, went out of print in 2004. Whispers from Vera went out of print around the time when another Ugandan woman writer, Doreen Baingana, was making waves in the literary world through her book, Tropical Fish, which won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Africa in 2006.
Unfortunately, Goretti Kyomuhendo's book went out of print when other women writers in Africa were beginning to make their mark. They include Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus), Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Weight of Whispers), Monica Arac de Nyeko (Jambula Tree), and Zukiswa Wanner (The Madams). I said unfortunately because Whispers from Vera would have competed favorably with offerings from these other writers. Whispers has the chatty, almost gossipy conversational style of Chimamanda's Purple Hibiscus and especially Americannah. Goretti's book arrests the reader, right from the very beginning, when Vera breathlessly discloses that she has finally found 'the man' of her life.
As a reader, you automatically know that Vera is the type of character you want to get close to and know better. Here is a person who bares her all: her desires, her anxieties, her triumphs, and even her frailties. Vera voices her secret anxiety about the lack of sexual intimacy with Eric, even though they have been a couple for three months! This secret concern grows into a near panic when Eric plans to introduce Vera to his parents before they even have sex.
Moralists would by now be judging Vera for being obsessed with sex, which is 'un-lady-like'. Well, the fact of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of couples partake in sex on the very first night/day. The most a new couple goes without getting sexually intimate is probably a week. So, moralists, keep off. At work, Vera badly wants a promotion, and the only way of achieving that is by accumulating more academic papers. She gives two examples of people currently doing well at their places of work, attributing it to the fact that they have more than one degree.
There is Ella, a Kenyan, working in their company, who now heads the personnel department, and Eric, who is a manager at his workplace. That makes Vera put in extra hours to study for an online course, not to expand her knowledge, but to get a promotion. In the end, she flunks in her online studies but is determined to pour in more resources and time to redo the paper, if only to get that promotion. Luck comes in a different form when her boss recommends her for a promotion to the company’s regional headquarters in Dakar, Senegal. She is initially hesitant to take up the promotion, seeing she had failed that online course.
The fact that she wins the promotion in Dakar, lays to waste the unhealthy obsession with paper qualifications as a prerequisite for a promotion. Her boss, being her immediate supervisor, knows her potential; that's why she recommended Vera for the promotion, even as Vera was doubting herself. On the topic of paper qualifications, there is a reason why Ella, one of two degree holders, is a Kenyan. Well, the period covered in the book witnessed an exodus of Kenyan students seeking to advance their studies in Uganda's institutions of higher learning. Some of them landed jobs in Uganda, courtesy of their papers. Such is the preoccupation of Kenyan employers with papers that it spawned an insidious culture of students paying others to do their academic work. To date, Kenyans are notorious for researching and writing academic work for students in foreign universities.
Back to Vera and Eric. The couple is now cohabiting after she fell pregnant before they could walk down the aisle. Remember the sex she was pining for... Well, it only happened once and bang, she became heavy with child. Their relationship is not without hiccups. For one, Eric defers to his mother, a wealthy but divorced Kampala businesswoman, much to Vera's ire. She, in the process discovers Eric’s hidden secret, which nearly ends the 'marriage'. Vera moves out with her infant son. In storming off, Vera comes across as one prone to headstrong behavior. Surely, how can she walk out of a marriage, because of a child… one your husband sired with another woman before you came into the picture? But then, you realize that different people react differently to different situations. The author is simply presenting us with a flawed character; but aren't we all flawed?
The author has a way of bringing out social issues and human foibles without being preachy and belaboring points. In Halima, we see a modestly educated woman who is happy, contented in a polygamous marriage. Halima is not only wise—according to Vera—but earthy and practical too. She is the one who saves the day when Vera is in labour,taking her to a cheaper maternity facility, albeit with rude staff, when the classy Epitome hospital refuses to admit her without a cash deposit—a very familiar story with many private medical facilities. When the country’s economy begins to bite—hallo Kenyans!—companies downsize and Halima becomes a victim of the chop. She resigns herself to her fate, and instead of whining and drowning herself in a pity party, she opts to go to the village and restart life as a farmer.
Then there is Samson, husband of Sheila, Vera's best friend, a brilliant economist and career person, who succumbs to the allure of politics and the promise of being appointed Finance minister, through patronage, how else? He quits his job, campaigns for and clinches the MP post through rigging, but fails to land his coveted cabinet perch. When he is made minister of a backwater docket, he is sacked after three months! Samson stares ruin in the face, as his savings are wiped out by the campaigns while chances of him going back into employment are slim - who would employ a disgraced minister? Don’t we all know people who poured all their investments into politics, only to lead miserable lives, when they failed to capture the positions they were gunning for?
Now Eric, Vera’s husband. Well, he is generally a good person, apart from being a Mama's boy—to the mother and the baby mama. Despite being brought up by a strong independent woman, he overreacts when Vera exercises her financial independence and buys a piece of land to put up a family home. He even threatens divorce! Toxic masculinity? To his credit, Eric accepts Vera taking up her promotion in Senegal. One issue though: from the story, Vera is a career woman, a senior one at that. So, how come she had to endure the indignity of giving birth in a low-class maternity hospital? Doesn't she have a medical cover at her place of work, for her to rely solely on Eric's cover?
Are women in Uganda, especially professional women, not accorded medical cover? That part of the story seems a bit contrived. But that is about the only flaw in an otherwise excellent book. Hopefully, Goretti is working on a sequel to Whispers from Vera, just as the book promises. That's the only way readers can hope to unravel the secret behind the separation of Eric's parents.
The book is also available as an Audiobook On the eKitabu App. Download from the Google Play Store and enjoy listening to the story.
Follow the steps below
Steps to download and Listen
- Sign Up or Sign In to shop.eKitabu.com email or Google)
- Search Whispers From Vera on the search bar
- Add to the cart and proceed to checkout
- Download the 'On eKitabu' App on Google Play Store
- Sign in using the same account you used on shop.ekitabu.com.
- Navigate to 'My bookshelf' within the app. You should see the Whispers From Vera audiobook there.
- Download it and enjoy Listening
- Explore other audiobooks and share feedback
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