The Civilized World

title: The Civilized World A Novel in Stories
author: Susi Wyss
genre: women's fiction
source: sent by the publisher for review
pages: 226
published: March 2011
first line: Adjoa had been going to Madame Janice's every week for the last three months, but she still couldn't put her finger on why her stomach clenched and her shoulders stiffened every time her twin brother, Kojo, drove her to the white woman's well-kept house.

rated: quietly engaging
4 out of 5 stars


blurb:

A glorious literary debut set in Africa about five unforgettable women—two of them haunted by a shared tragedy—whose lives intersect in unexpected and sometimes explosive ways.

I actually received The Civilized World from the publisher months ago and shame on me for taking so long to read and review it.
This novel is quiet and beautiful and it drew me into it's pages straight away. I finished reading it in a single day. It will make it to my top reads of 2012 and I'm happy to have found a favorite so early on in the year.

I enjoy stories set in Africa and this novel swept me away for a little while. It is written in the form of intertwining stories surrounding five different women. I liked that I didn't know where the stories were going and I felt as if the stories were slowly revealing themselves to me.
As I read, I got to see how these women's lives were somehow interwoven. Each of these women seemed real to me and each story felt real. This book just flows, the narrative style is engaging. Where one story will wind off, another will pick up and yet another, until a previous one will start again where it left off. None of it was jarring however, it all reads smoothly.

For the most part, the stories revolve around motherhood and family, strife, heartache and forgiveness. The stories take place in modern day Africa as well as in America. An infertile American couple who want to adopt an African baby, a grandmother from Ghana whose son married an American woman and left for the States to raise his family, an African woman whose twin and soul mate was killed too young; these are just some of the people inside these stories.

I highly recommend The Civilized World to fans of quiet women's fiction. This is a book will slowly draw you into it's pages and that you will savor as you read. It's not a long book, but at 226 pages, I wish it was longer. The author makes you care about these characters.

On a final note, I love this book cover. It's simple yet beautiful, just like the book itself.

What did it feel like to have such a strong sense of home, a bond to a place as strong as an umbilical cord?
p. 63, The Civilized World

About the author:

Susi Wyss's fiction is influenced by her twenty-year career managing women's health programs in Africa, where she lived for more than eight years. She holds a B.A. from Vassar, an M.P.H. from Boston University, and an M.A. in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of the novel The Civilized World. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.