Tolstoy may have made famous the claim that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but Tolani Akinola takes the old adage to new heights in Leave Your Mess at Home, an incredible and moving debut centered on one family's dysfunction that probes questions of familial belonging and duty, immigration and identity, harm and healing.
The Longes moved to Chicago from Nigeria in search of the American Dream, and on the outside, they've achieved it: "their house on North Hermitage Ave. a thing fought for, one child a doctor, another on her way, her first son a successful businessman." But that neat summary ignores entirely the misery of the grown Longe children. Ola, the eldest and the successful businessman, is facing a crisis of identity as he considers how to raise his first child in a world not built to be kind to men like him, neither Black enough for American culture nor Nigerian enough to belong fully to his parents' people. Anjola, the doctor, is burnt out in her career and secretly in love with her best friend, who is engaged to someone else. The doctor-to-be, Karen, is still in university and does not even want to be a doctor, but is as clear on how to tell her parents of her career dreams as she is on how to tell them she might be gay. And all of that is not to mention Sola, the eldest daughter, long estranged from her family after an intense argument with her mother nearly a decade earlier.
When Sola returns to Chicago following the very public implosion of her influencer career, she slowly reconnects with members of her family--some intentionally, some by chance. But her homecoming proves the harbinger of a great reckoning for the Longes, as long-buried secrets are laid bare and the siblings are forced to ask themselves not only what their parents want for them, but what they each want for themselves. With great care and no small amount of humor, Akinola explores the hidden toll of secrets and buried resentments over decades spent loving one another within the bounds of a messy, imperfect family. Heartfelt and heartbreaking, Leave Your Mess at Home is a reminder that everyone is a product of where they come from, for better or worse, yet in belonging to a family, there is always choice in what shape that belonging may take across hurt and harm and, ultimately, healing. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer
Shelf Talker: An incredible and moving debut centered on one family's dysfunction that probes on questions of familial belonging and duty, immigration and identity, harm and healing.