Rootless

January 30, 2023
Appiah debuts with an expansive and rich saga of a British Ghanaian woman balancing familial expectations with her own desires. In 2016 London, Sam Mensah is frantically searching for Efe Owusu-Mensah, his disappeared wife. With a parallel narrative, Appiah unspools Efe’s story, beginning 19 years earlier when her parents sent her and her younger sister, Serwaa, from Accra, Ghana, to live with their aunt in London to finish secondary school. Culture shock overwhelms Efe, but Serwaa easily assimilates. Soon, though, Efe finds her footing with some help from her popular cousin, who introduces her to Sam. After pursuing a degree in economics, Efe fails out of college, much to her parents’ chagrin. Depressed and isolated, she eventually decides to study art history before marrying Sam and reluctantly starting a family. Postpartum depression follows the birth of their daughter, but with time and therapy Efe’s spirits improve. Still, she feels drawn to Ghana, where it turns out she’s traveled to without telling Sam. Though the narrative runs a little longer than necessary, Appiah is adept at showing the ways Efe copes with the pain of abandonment and depression. This cosmopolitan work will speak to readers. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Mar.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated the Efe character had an older sister, and that she moved to London to finish primary school.

February 15, 2023
As this heart-wrenching novel opens, Sam is devastated by the sudden disappearance of his wife, Efe. Rewinding time from that first chapter, readers learn the origins of Sam and Efe's tumultuous relationship. Both of Ghanaian heritage, they've had a connection since their first meeting in high school. After other lovers and near misses, the two finally become a couple, marry, and have a daughter, Olivia. But Efe's sorrow is deep and constant, spanning all the way back to her childhood and the abuse she endured from classmates. Her very religious family, friends, and even Sam have never put her first. Chapters alternate between Sam and Efe's points of view; Sam's own past as an abandoned child explains why he centers himself in their relationship. Despite their great love, Sam refuses to acknowledge Efe's struggles with motherhood, society's expectations of her as a mother, and her own mental illness. While Appiah's debut is harrowing and terribly sad, readers will empathize with Efe as she searches for hope in spite of her burdens.

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March 1, 2023

DEBUT Giving voice to the misgivings around motherhood and the pressures that those closest to us can bring to bear on pivotal decisions, this debut cracks the personal and familial wide open. Efe met Sam when she first arrived in the UK from Ghana in 1997. Sam was an earlier arrival from Ghana, already familiar with school in England. Nineteen years later, Sam races up the steps to their London apartment, breathlessly looking for Efe and the �1,300 missing from their bank account, while their young daughter Liv asks after her mother. The years from meet-cute to missing mother take readers on an intimate and painful journey with Efe as she grapples with cultural and familial forces that shape her life and decisions. Does she want a child? Sam does, and he makes no secret of it, pressuring Efe. Efe feels torn between her family community in Ghana and the less familiar, fast-paced material life in London. How could she grow to understand herself, much less raise a family she's not sure she even wants, in this uncertain environment? VERDICT Appiah's storytelling is heartrending, with a sharp insight that few have dared attempt.--Julie Kane

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