Africa Junction by Ginny Baily: book review

Africa Junction (2012) is set in west Africa and England from 1990 to 2007.

Adele Healey is a single mother to son Joe, teaching French in an English secondary school. With an affair disintegrating, her life is becoming morose.

She dreams of the time, 25 years ago, when she lived in west Africa – in Senegal – as a child, with her British parents. She remembers playing with a girl called Ellena, and she begins to wonder what happened to her. She remembers too her heartless act towards Ellena, and wants to make amends.

Adele decides to return to Africa to find Ellena, in the hope of rekindling the childhood friendship.

From this premise, the novel goes back and forth in time, in a confusing way, with a string of shallow characters. Locations change too – Senegal, Mali, Liberia, Ethiopia, Wales, England … It’s not always easy to discern where you are and why you are there.

Instead of all the threads coming together, they seem to unravel, along with Adele’s life, and just when some threads seem to be tied, they come apart at the seams soon afterwards. This thin threading, with a slow beginning, coupled with time leaps and regressions, backed up with distracting tangents, and supported by undeveloped characters, makes this a difficult read.

I think the only unsevered thread is the theme of diversity.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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