DAYS COME & GO – Hemley Boum

I took a “traveling” break for Booker season, but we’re back to “Tommi Reads the World” – we’re still in the C’s!!!

Country: Cameroon
Title: Days Come & Go
Author: Hemley Boum
Language: French
Translator: Nchanji Njamnsi
Publisher: Agence littéraire Astier-Pécher (2020), Two Lines Press (2022)

I was a bit bummed when my copy of Hemley Boum’s Days Come & Go arrived because while it was advertised as used, it was not advertised as an advanced reader’s copy. I can’t say if the book I read is how the translation was ultimately published, so I will not be sharing any quotes.

I initially thought this book would be about mothers and daughters – namely Anna and Abi. It opens with Anna dying of cancer and her daughter caring for her.  In hospice, Anna has decided to tell her story. She talks to the nurses, to her daughter, to the walls. The majority of the novel is that – Anna’s recollections of a history so tied to Cameroon that the country itself is a character even though Anna is breathing her last in Paris.  I was a bit surprised when the novel switched to Tina’s POV.  After Abi had left home for France, Anna ended up taking in Jenny, the daughter of her housekeeper. Jenny was the same age as Abi’s son, Max, and when he visited his grandmother, he became part of a group of friends that consisted of Jenny, Tina, and Ismael.  While Max is back home in France, Jenny, Tina and Ishmael join a militant terrorist faction. Under that regime, they end up at the Boko Haram camps, and none of their lives would ever be the same.  Tina tells their story.

All three women struggle with identity and belonging in a country that is rapidly changing. Anna struggles early on with wanting to be Anna instead of Bouissi. She straddles two worlds her entire life. Her daughter, Abi leaves Cameroon the moment she can, marrying a white man and making a home in France.  (Cameroon obtained its independence from France in 1960). And Tina ends up the third wife of one of the most powerful and dangerous leaders at a Boko Haram camp. 

I don’t want to ruin the novel, but trust me that it does all come together. While the storytelling becomes disjointed with Tina and the framework seems a bit forced toward the end, this was a captivating novel of a nation in turmoil and three generations of women who call it home.