Dele Weds Destiny

Three Nigerian college friends reunite after decades in this lush if busy debut. In 2015, wealthy Funmi Akingbola invites her best friends to the wedding of her medical student daughter, Destiny, in Lagos. Enitan, who eloped to America with a white man she is now divorcing, arrives with her own college-age daughter, Remi. Zainab, a Muslim caring for her husband after a series of strokes, survives a violent robbery on the bus to Lagos. Together, the friends tiptoe around memories of past struggles, which Obaro explores more fully in flashbacks to 1983, when all three met at a Nigerian university. As a freshman, Funmi draws attraction from dreamy literature student Zainab’s politically active boyfriend, while helping Enitan with her coursework. Meanwhile, Zainab enlists her friends to help convince her father to allow her to marry his protégé, and Funmi conscripts Enitan for support during her illegal abortion. Back in 2015, not a lot happens until the end, with a big surprise involving the bride. Obaro offers plenty of sumptuous depictions of Nigerian culture via Destiny’s wedding, as well as perceptive observations about the characters, though the dual timeline makes this feel at once rushed and overstuffed, and leaves the characters underdeveloped. The result is pleasant if not entirely memorable. (June)