Behold the dreamers A novel

Imbolo Mbue

Book - 2016

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Subjects
Genres
Domestic fiction
Published
New York : Random House [2016]
Language
English
Main Author
Imbolo Mbue (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
382 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780525509714
9780812998481
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

THE YEARS 2007-9 were bad ones for America. The housing bubble burst, the auto industry was in free fall, unemployment rose as high as 10 percent, and Wall Street was at the edge of an abyss. It's just before this tumult that Jende Jonga, an immigrant from Cameroon and one of the central characters in Imbolo Mbue's debut novel, "Behold the Dreamers," arrives in New York with a visitor's visa and the hope that somehow he might transform his temporary status with a green card. Two years later, he sends for his wife, Neni, and their son, Liomi, who join him in Harlem. When we first meet Jende, he's on his way to a job interview, aiming to become a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, an executive at Lehman Brothers. Jende gets the job, and before long he's shuttling not only Clark but Clark's wife, Cindy, and their two children throughout the city. Mbue writes with great confidence and warmth, effortlessly inhabiting the minds of both Jende and his wife. Neni, balancing motherhood and her dreams of becoming a pharmacist, is particularly appealing; she thrums on the page, full of complexity and yearning. Only once, in a pivotal moment toward the end of the book, does she act out of character in a way that feels forced, but elsewhere her sense of her own transformation ("Maybe I'm becoming another person") struck me as a fresh take on the immigrant experience - providing not simply the jolt of being in a new place but also the jolt of taking on a new identity because of that place. Still, if it's place you want, the novel offers that too. Neni observes that "even in New York City, even in a place of many nations and cultures, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, preferred their kind when it came to those they kept closest." Jende's immigration lawyer tells him : "The police is for the protection of white people. . . . But not black men." Jende laments that "people in this country, always worrying about how to eat, they pay someone good money to tell them: Eat this, don't eat that. If you don't know how to eat, what else can you know how to do in this world?" As the story progresses, the plot, which is premised on a class divide, unfolds to reveal many more fissures crackling beneath the surface - immigration proceedings don't go well, marriages falter, friendships fail, children stray. There are a lot of spinning plates, and Mbue balances them skillfully, keeping everything in motion. Even more impressive is the vitality that gleams through the film of gloom as the story becomes less about what happens to the Jongas than about their efforts to make peace with their fate, whatever and wherever it might be. And yet, while the novel's setup is rich with possibility, Mbue doesn't always make the most of it. Within the confines of the car, Jende regularly overhears Clark's business conversations, but the words float through the narrative without consequence. When Lehman goes bankrupt, the event is devoid of context; it doesn't offer us a glimpse into much beyond Jende's panic, his fear that he'll lose his job. When Neni starts working for Cindy Edwards at the family's vacation house in the Hamptons, the conceit is ripe - the Jongas of Harlem pitted against the Edwardses of the Hamptons. But these places remain little more than signifiers. The living room of the Edwardses' porticoed mansion has an "all-white décor and large windows as if to never lose a view of the sky." In contrast, the Jongas' dark, fifth-floor walk-up apartment has a "threadbare living room sofa" and is "full of cockroaches." There's no deep exploration of the true gap between the two. Even so, "Behold the Dreamers" is a capacious, big-hearted novel. Near the end of it, Neni describes Am erica as "a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers." That might aptly describe the book as well. CRISTINA HENRÍQUEZ is the author, most recently, of "The Book of Unknown Americans."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 11, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review

They could not have picked a worse company to hitch their wagon to nor a worse time to do so. It is late 2007, and the economy is on the cusp of the Great Recession when young Cameroonian immigrants Jende and Neni Jonga chase after the American dream in New York City. Despite lacking papers, Jende finds a job as chauffeur to one of Lehman's top executives, Clark Edwards. Juggling children and jobs, wife Neni works toward her ultimate goal, a pharmacy degree. The Jonga family's fate intertwines with the Edwardses', and both families are caught in the financial and emotional fallout following the Lehman collapse. The Edwards family verges on a caricature of the rich and troubled (Clark's wife, Cindy, is addicted to drugs, and son, Vince, sets off to India to find himself), but the Jongas are vividly realized, their struggles and petty concerns soulfully narrated, with sparkling dialog. The occasional melodramatic note notwithstanding, Mbue's first novel is a weighty meditation on the true collateral costs of that all-American pastime, the pursuit of happiness.--Apte, Poornima Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

From Cameroonian Mbue comes a debut novel about two immigrants struggling to find their footing in a new world. When Jende Jonga journeys to New York City from Cameroon in 2004 on a visitors' visa in hopes of obtaining a green card, he's sure his life will only improve. After saving up enough money to bring over Jende's wife, Neni, and six-year-old son, the family moves into an apartment in Harlem. Then Jende hits the jackpot in 2007 when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a wealthy Lehman Brothers executive. But working for the Edwardses isn't as cushy and above board as Jende expected. Clark's long hours at the office and frequent late-night "appointments" at the Chelsea Hotel raise red flags with his wife, Cindy. When Neni agrees to accompany the Edwards family to Southampton as a temporary nanny for their youngest son, she learns far more than she bargained for about Cindy's fragile mental state. Before long, the pressure of keeping what they know about Clark and Cindy-and the threat of deportation-becomes too much for the Jongas to bear, threatening the stability of their marriage and their ability to remain in a country they still can't call home. Mbue's reliance on overheard phone conversations to forward the plot makes for choppy reading, and the tenor of the Edwardses' rich-people problems is nothing new. But the Jongas are much more vivid, and the book's unexpected ending-and its sharp-eyed focus on issues of immigration, race, and class-speak to a sad truth in today's cutthroat world: the American dream isn't what it seems. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

This heartfelt and intimate portrayal of African immigrants trying to make it in New York City around 2007 focuses on the family of Jende Jonga from Cameroon. He lands a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy finance industry boss and is then able to bring his wife, Neni, and their young son over from Africa. Neni enrolls in college and is hired as a cleaner and nanny for the family for whom Jende works, and they become more involved with these superrich people who have problems of their own. As the Wall Street financial crisis deepens, Jende loses his job, and their application for asylum is rejected. The incredible pressures of poverty, limited opportunities, and the grind of New York City and an uncertain future stress the family to the breaking point as a new baby is born and they struggle not to lose sight of their dream. -Mbue's debut portrays these individuals realistically and sympathetically as the stresses of surviving in New York City lead to marital difficulties and physical confrontations. VERDICT A fast-paced, engaging read with an interesting cross-cultural background. [See Prepub Alert, 2/8/16.]-James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The American dream is put to the test by the economic disaster of 2007. Among the spate of novels forged in the crucible of the previous decade, Mbue's impressive debut deserves a singular place. This diversely peopled and crisply narrated story follows the trajectories of two Manhattan families, one at the top of the social heap and the other at the bottom. In the foreground is Jende Jonga, an immigrant from Cameroon, his wife, Neni, studying to be a pharmacist, and their young son. When Jende, who has been working as a dishwasher, scores a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a muckety-muck at Lehman Brothers with a troubled wife and similarly aged son, the fates of the Jongas and the Edwardses become entwined. Except for a nagging immigration problem being handled by a lousy lawyer, things go very well at first. Jende loves dressing up in a suit and driving a Lexus while Clark conducts endless cellphone conversations and laptop machinations in the back seat. Neni excels in school and becomes pregnant with a child who will be born a U.S. citizen. Then, during her summer hiatus in the Hamptons, Mrs. Edwards hires Neni to help with child care. One day she finds her employer disheveled and crashed out at midday; around this time, Clark starts having Jende take him for one-hour visits to the Chelsea Hotel. Cracks in the Edwards marriage are paralleled by trouble for the Jongas, too. Yet the magnitude of the catastrophe makes itself clear only slowlyparticularly to immigrant eyes, dazzled by everything from shopping at Pathmark to the presidency of Obama to the freedom of Occupy protesters to demonstrate without being rounded up and thrown into prison. They will learn. Realistic, tragic, and still remarkably kind to all its characters, this is a special book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

One He'd never been asked to wear a suit to a job interview. Never been told to bring along a copy of his résumé. He hadn't even owned a résumé until the previous week when he'd gone to the library on Thirty-­fourth and Madison and a volunteer career counselor had written one for him, detailed his work history to suggest he was a man of grand accomplishments: farmer responsible for tilling land and growing healthy crops; street cleaner responsible for making sure the town of Limbe looked beautiful and pristine; dishwasher in Manhattan restaurant, in charge of ensuring patrons ate from clean and germ-­free plates; livery cabdriver in the Bronx, responsible for taking passengers safely from place to place. He'd never had to worry about whether his experience would be appropriate, whether his English would be perfect, whether he would succeed in coming across as intelligent enough. But today, dressed in the green double-­breasted pinstripe suit he'd worn the day he entered America, his ability to impress a man he'd never met was all he could think about. Try as he might, he could do nothing but think about the questions he might be asked, the answers he would need to give, the way he would have to walk and talk and sit, the times he would need to speak or listen and nod, the things he would have to say or not say, the response he would need to give if asked about his legal status in the country. His throat went dry. His palms moistened. Unable to reach for his handkerchief in the packed downtown subway, he wiped both palms on his pants. "Good morning, please," he said to the security guard in the lobby when he arrived at Lehman Brothers. "My name is Jende Jonga. I am here for Mr. Edwards. Mr. Clark Edwards." The guard, goateed and freckled, asked for his ID, which he quickly pulled out of his brown bifold wallet. The man took it, examined it front and back, looked up at his face, looked down at his suit, smiled, and asked if he was trying to become a stockbroker or something. Jende shook his head. "No," he replied without smiling back. "A chauffeur." "Right on," the guard said as he handed him a visitor pass. "Good luck with that." This time Jende smiled. "Thank you, my brother," he said. "I really need all that good luck today." Alone in the elevator to the twenty-­eighth floor, he inspected his fingernails (no dirt, thankfully). He adjusted his clip-­on tie using the security mirror above his head; reexamined his teeth and found no visible remnants of the fried ripe plantains and beans he'd eaten for breakfast. He cleared his throat and wiped off whatever saliva had crusted on the sides of his lips. When the doors opened he straightened his shoulders and introduced himself to the receptionist, who, after responding with a nod and a display of extraordinarily white teeth, made a phone call and asked him to follow her. They walked through an open space where young men in blue shirts sat in cubicles with multiple screens, down a corridor, past another open space of cluttered cubicles and into a sunny office with a four-­paneled glass window running from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, the thousand autumn-­drenched trees and proud towers of Manhattan standing outside. For a second his mouth fell open, at the view outside--­the likes of which he'd never seen--­and the exquisiteness inside. There was a lounging section (black leather sofa, two black leather chairs, glass coffee table) to his right, an executive desk (oval, cherry, black leather reclining chair for the executive, two green leather armchairs for visitors) in the center, and a wall unit (cherry, glass doors, white folders in neat rows) to his left, in front of which Clark Edwards, in a dark suit, was standing and feeding sheets of paper into a pullout shredder. "Please, sir, good morning," Jende said, turning toward him and half-­bowing. "Have a seat," Clark said without lifting his eyes from the shredder. Jende hurried to the armchair on the left. He pulled a résumé from his folder and placed it in front of Clark's seat, careful not to disturb the layers of white papers and Wall Street Journals strewn across the desk in a jumble. One of the Journal pages, peeking from beneath sheets of numbers and graphs, had the headline: whites' great hope? barack obama and the dream of a color-­blind america. Jende leaned forward to read the story, fascinated as he was by the young ambitious senator, but immediately sat upright when he remembered where he was, why he was there, what was about to happen. "Do you have any outstanding tickets you need to resolve?" Clark asked as he sat down. "No, sir," Jende replied. "And you haven't been in any serious accidents, right?" "No, Mr. Edwards." Clark picked up the résumé from his desk, wrinkled and moist like the man whose history it held. His eyes remained on it for several seconds while Jende's darted back and forth, from the Central Park treetops far beyond the window to the office walls lined with abstract paintings and portraits of white men wearing bow ties. He could feel beads of sweat rising out of his forehead. "Well, Jende," Clark said, putting the résumé down and leaning back in his chair. "Tell me about yourself." Jende perked up. This was the question he and his wife, Neni, had discussed the previous night; the one they'd read about when they Googled "the one question they ask at every job interview." They had spent an hour hunched over the cranky desktop, searching for the best answer, reading much-­too-­similar pieces of advice on the first ten sites Google delivered, before deciding it would be best if Jende spoke of his strong character and dependability, and of how he had everything a busy executive like Mr. Edwards needed in a chauffeur. Neni had suggested he also highlight his wonderful sense of humor, perhaps with a joke. After all, she had said, which Wall Street executive, after spending hours racking his brain on how to make more money, wouldn't appreciate entering his car to find his chauffeur ready with a good joke? Jende had agreed and prepared an answer, a brief monologue which concluded with a joke about a cow at a supermarket. That should work very well, Neni had said. And he had believed so, too. But when he began to speak, he forgot his prepared answer. "Okay, sir," he said instead. "I live in Harlem with my wife and with my six-­years-­old son. And I am from Cameroon, in Central Africa, or West Africa. Depends on who you ask, sir. I am from a little town on the Atlantic Ocean called Limbe." "I see." "Thank you, Mr. Edwards," he said, his voice quivering, unsure of what he was thankful for. "And what kind of papers do you have in this country?" "I have papers, sir," he blurted out, leaning forward and nodding repeatedly, goose bumps shooting up all over his body like black balls out of a cannon. "I said what kind of papers?" "Oh, I am sorry, sir. I have EAD. EAD, sir . . . that is what I have right now." "What's that supposed--­" The BlackBerry on the desk buzzed. Clark quickly picked it up. "What does that mean?" he asked, looking down at the phone. "It means Employment Authorization Document, sir," Jende replied, shifting in his seat. Clark neither responded nor gestured. He kept his head down, his eyes on the smartphone, his soft-­looking fingers jumping all over the keypad, lithely and speedily--­up, left, right, down. "It is a work permit, sir," Jende added. He looked at Clark's fingers, then his forehead, and his fingers again, uncertain of how else to obey the rules of eye contact when eyes were not available for contact. "It means I am allowed to work, sir. Until I get my green card." Clark half-­nodded and continued typing. Jende looked out the window, hoping he wasn't sweating too profusely. "And how long will it take for you to get this green card?" Clark asked as he put down the BlackBerry. "I just really don't know, sir. Immigration is slow, sir; very funny how they work." "But you're in the country legally for the long term, correct?" "Oh, yes, sir," Jende said. He nodded repeatedly again, a pained smile on his face, his eyes unblinking. "I am very legal, sir. I just am still waiting for my green card." For a long second Clark stared at Jende, his vacant green eyes giving no clue to his thoughts. Hot sweat was flowing down Jende's back, soaking the white shirt Neni had bought for him from a street vendor on 125th Street. The desk phone rang. "Very well, then," Clark said, picking up the phone. "As long as you're legal." Jende Jonga exhaled. The terror that had gripped his chest when Clark Edwards mentioned the word "papers" slowly loosened. He closed his eyes and offered thanks to a merciful Being, grateful half the truth had been sufficient. What would he have said if Mr. Edwards had asked more questions? How would he have explained that his work permit and driver's license were valid only for as long as his asylum application was pending or approved, and that if his application were to be denied, all his documents would become invalid and there would be no green card? How could he have possibly explained his asylum application? Would there have been a way to convince Mr. Edwards that he was an honest man, a very honest man, actually, but one who was now telling a thousand tales to Immigration just so he could one day become an American citizen and live in this great nation forever? "And you've been here for how long?" Clark asked after putting down the receiver. "Three years, sir. I came in 2004, in the month--­" He paused, startled by Clark's thunderous sneeze. "May God bless you, sir," he said as the executive placed his wrist under his nose and let loose another sneeze, louder than the first. "Ashia, sir," he added. "May God bless you again." Clark leaned forward and picked up a bottle of water on the right side of his desk. Behind him, far beyond the spotless glass window, a red helicopter flew above the park, going from west to east under the cloudless morning sky. Jende returned his gaze to Clark and watched as he took a few sips from the bottle. He yearned for a sip of water, too, to erase the dryness in his throat, but dared not change the trajectory of the interview by asking for some. No, he couldn't dare. Certainly not right now. His throat could be the driest spot in the Kalahari and it wouldn't matter right now--­he was doing well. Okay, maybe not too well. But he wasn't doing too badly, either. "All right," Clark said, putting down the bottle. "Let me tell you what I want in a driver." Jende swallowed and nodded. "I demand loyalty. I demand dependability. I demand punctuality, and I demand that you do as I say and ask no questions. Works for you?" "Yes, sir, of course, Mr. Edwards." "You're going to sign a confidentiality agreement that you'll never say anything about what you hear me say or see me do. Never. To anyone. Absolutely no one. Do you understand?" "I understand you very clearly, sir." "Good. I'll treat you right, but you must treat me right first. I'll be your main priority, and when I don't need you, you'll take care of my family. I'm a busy man, so don't expect me to supervise you. You've come to me very highly recommended." Excerpted from Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.