Please Note: I received a physical review copy of Pride and Joy and was monetarily compensated in exchange for composing and hosting an interview with the author. This compensation in no way affected my opinions.
Title Pride and Joy
Author Louisa Onomé
Intended Target Audience Adult
Genre Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Publication Date March 12th 2024 by Atria Books
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● Blackwell’s ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
Perfect for “fans of dark, laugh-out-loud family dramas” (Bust magazine), this is a heartwarming and hilarious novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family grappling with their matriarch’s sudden passing while their auntie insists that her sister is coming back.
Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. Recently divorced, a life coach whose phone won’t stop ringing, and ever the dutiful Nigerian daughter, Joy has planned every aspect of her mother’s seventieth birthday weekend on her own.
As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids go to wake her, they find that she isn’t sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she had a premonition that Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
Desperate to believe that they’re about to witness a miracle, the family overhauls their birthday plans to welcome the Nigerian Canadian community, effectively spreading the word that Mama Mary is coming back. But skeptical Joy is struggling with the loss of her mother and not allowing herself to mourn just yet while going through the motions of planning a funeral that her aunt refuses to allow.
Filled with humor and flawed, deeply relatable characters “so rich in heritage and complexity that I can’t believe these characters do not really exist” (Jesse Q. Sutanto, national bestselling author of Dial A For Aunties), Pride and Joy will draw you in as the Okafors prepare for a miracle while coming apart at the seams, praying that they haven’t actually lost Mama Mary for good, and grappling with what losing her truly means for each of them.
Louisa Onomé
Louisa Onomé is a Nigerian-Canadian writer of books for teens and adults. She holds a BA in professional writing and a MA in counselling psychology. Her debut young adult novel Like Home was critically acclaimed, receiving several starred reviews, including from Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal.
When she is not writing, she works as a narrative designer in games. Her hobbies include language study, obsessing a healthy amount over her favourite video games, and perfecting her skincare routine. She currently resides in the Toronto area.
1. Pride & Joy is your first novel written for an adult audience, following the publication of your young adult books, Like Home, Twice As Perfect and The Melancholy of Summer. I would love to hear about your experience in transitioning to writing for an entirely different audience! How was writing Pride & Joy similar or different to your previous publishing experience?
In a strange way, I feel as if the only thing that really changed was me! A long time ago (prior to writing YA), I had always been interested in writing for an adult audience, but I didn’t believe that I could. I was pretty naive in thinking that adult fiction had to fit a strict formula or tone. But reading more adult fiction really expanded me to feel like I could tell a fun story about rituals, family, and death through an adult perspective. And after I really internalized that, it felt like any other writing process: writing around and through characters who have their own stories to tell, and throwing in several niche jokes to make myself giggle along the way.
2. Pride & Joy is a beautifully complex story that interweaves the lives and perspectives of three generations of an extended Nigerian Canadian family. From a craft standpoint, what are some of the challenges and joys of writing a novel with a such large cast of characters and perspectives? I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it must have been at times!
Thank you so much! For sure one of the biggest joys was getting to write a multi-generational story with so many layered characters. I’m a huge fan of unlikeable characters — I don’t think a character needs to be likeable to be effective for a story — so it was great to write so many of them here! It also gave me an opportunity to really write different kinds of people. Oftentimes, and especially in YA, I felt beholden to a specific type or plot point, regardless of if that’s something that felt authentic for a character or not. With the characters in Pride And Joy, I got to have characters who didn’t always behave the greatest, or maybe they did, but their motives weren’t always ideal. It was a lot of fun for me and I hope it was just as fun for readers to experience!
In terms of challenges — this was the first time I’ve ever written a story with this many people, so the sheer difficulty of keeping everyone together, remembering what everyone was doing, etc, was kinda challenging. I’m not a planner either, so you can imagine how that went!
3. Mama Mary Okafor dies on Good Friday, the timing of which each character places a different degree of significance. What inspired you to set the novel during this particular time period? What, if any, significance does the timing of Mama Okafor’s death hold for you?
I felt it would be a lot of fun to have a time constraint on the story. I’ve always wanted to write something like that, where events happen within a certain timeframe or there’s a deadline. With Good Friday leading up to Easter Sunday, it felt like a great opportunity to dig into a topic I’ve always been interested in but never really explored in my work: spirituality and religion. I grew up in a religious household, but I don’t identify as religious anymore — nor do I ever think I did. But my lack of interest in religion never felt like a huge point of contention for my family because of the spiritual roots of our culture, and I’ve always thought that was a pretty interesting dynamic. I will say that not every Nigerian family is like mine in that regard, so I count myself lucky. Being able to have characters who are all over the spectrum in terms of their beliefs allowed me to explore both sides of the conversation.
4. The complex nature of identity is a central topic throughout the novel. We see Joy struggle with feeling “Nigerian enough”, and how the death of her mother also signifies the loss of connection to their Nigerian heritage for her son, Jamil. One particular passage regarding identity struck me as poignant: “To go all the way to Canada would mean starting over, bearing your differences and being othered. Being “Black,” not Igbo. Being just “Nigerian,” not Igbo.” This excerpt was a powerful reminder that, however well-meaning, terms like “melting pot” in reference to a diverse community can hold within them an inherent flattening or simplification of identity. Among the many challenges faced by those immigrating to a new country, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to feel as though you’re losing some of the beautiful nuances in both your racial and cultural identity. What’s your perspective on this topic and aspect of the story?
Yeah, this is something I think about a lot, but haven’t really come to any conclusion about. My parents immigrated to Canada in the 80s and so, for them, the version of Nigeria that exists is kinda suspended in time. For me, having grown up in Canada and only visited Nigeria, I feel a deep sense of loss in a way that is maybe similar to my parents, but different. It’s like theirs is a loss of something they know, but mine is a loss of something I don’t know at all, and I wanted to reflect those nuances in Pride And Joy because I think they’re a lot more common than we realize. Being Nigerian is a big part of my identity, and I always catch mannerisms and ways of being that I’ve inherited from my parents and my community, but in other ways, I sometimes question if those nuances are enough to justify an identity. It’s hard!
5. I felt deeply for Joy throughout the novel, thanks in large part to your rich rendering of her many insecurities, quirks and vulnerabilities. Joy is employed as a life coach and dedicates her life to helping others, but we often see her struggle to employ what she teaches others in her own life, whether it be maintaining boundaries with an aggressive client, vocalizing the resentment she feels toward her brother, Michael, asserting herself against her Auntie Nancy, or exploring her complicated feelings about her divorce with her ex-husband, David. Can you speak a little about this aspect of her character?
Yeah, I think Joy is a great focal character because of the qualities you described. She’s not perfect, she doesn’t handle things well under pressure, and she’s, ironically, not a great communicator. I think a lot of first-generation kids understand the struggle of not being able to voice concerns within your family, so in some ways, outside of her family, Joy may be doing a solid job as a coach, but once she goes home and is surrounded by her family and community structure, she reverts. I wanted that part to be relatable to those of us who struggle with trying to carve out space for ourselves in our families.
6. One of the central conflicts in the novel appears to be between rationality and faith, as typified by the two extreme examples of Joy and Auntie Nancy. As one character so eloquently puts it: “Faith and logic can’t always coexist, but that doesn’t mean one is better or more truthful than the other.” In your own life, do you feel you value or rely on one more readily than the other? Was there a character you felt particularly connected to or who you sympathized most with in regard to this aspect of the novel?
I’m definitely more of a spiritual person and I employ logic as little as possible. I’m (mostly) joking, but I do identify with the part of Joy who believes in something greater. In Joy’s case, she feels she has been let down by God or a higher power, so her pivot to only relying on psychology and the like is admittedly more of a trauma response. But! I think, more than anything, a belief in logic is still a belief and is a form of faith. At the end of the day, our beliefs are meant to give us comfort and allow us to be with more parts of ourselves, which I think is what Joy begins to realize as the story goes on.
In terms of characters I sympathized with, I would absolutely have to say Auntie Nancy. I’ve known a lot of people like her, so, yes, parts of her are definitely a caricature, but it was important for me to show (even with a bit of comedy) that weaponizing faith is extremely common and is also, in some ways, a response to a lack of faith and trust. She is operating from a place of deep hurt but can’t put down her guard enough to admit that.
7. The weaponization of faith is a theme that runs prominently throughout the book, most notably in Auntie Nancy’s disregard for the grief and trauma of those around her so that she can centre herself and her claim of a religious premonition that foretold the resurrection of her dead sister. While this could charitably be interpreted by the reader as Nancy’s means of coping with her sister’s unexpected death, it was painful to watch as this also hurt those around her in the process. This theme feels especially prescient and relevant right now as we see politicians attempt to apply their own personal religious beliefs to public policy for citizens who do not share those beliefs. What were your feelings about this aspect of the novel?
I always feel weaponizing anything is a fear response — whether it’s faith, knowledge, or using actual weapons. It’s no different in Auntie Nancy’s case, though she (and other people I’ve met who are like her) might argue that she’s just being good and pious. Personally, I feel faith and belief is such a personal thing, and is meant to be that way because it’s about an internal, private connection to something. Projecting it outwards and forcing it on others feels antithetical to me.
8. One of my favourite moments in the novel was when Joy and Michael were able to bond in the wake of their mother’s death by dancing together while listening to their mom’s favourite tapes and CDs. It was a touching reminder that we should cherish what we loved about those who have died, rather than fixating on the death or loss itself. One of my favourite memories of my grandfather is how he used to mail me his favourite comic strip from the newspaper every week. Do you have any special memories of someone you have loved and lost?
Aww that’s a really sweet memory of your grandfather! As for me, it’s kinda morbid, which may or may not be surprising considering the fact that I wrote an entire book about grappling with death, but I tend to think of what I’ll miss about people when they eventually go. I don’t think about it often, but I definitely think about it more than I probably should. Things like a person’s favourite song or favourite activities, and how I’d listen to a song or do an activity and think about that person. I’d want to be remembered by the music I liked, since music is really important to me, so I think about that a lot. But I’m also interested in what people will remember the most about me.
