The Three of Us

Agbaje-Williams’s debut follows three British Nigerians—a wife, her best friend, and her husband—circling the ins and outs of their rapidly deteriorating relationship. The novel is divided into three distinct segments, with Tariyé Peterside giving voice to the wife, Jake Fairbrother narrating the part of the husband, and T’Nia Miller performing the role of Temi, the wife’s best friend and the only named character. Temi settles in for a long day of drinking with the wife, but her visit is immediately overshadowed with tension. Temi has never liked the husband and has always expected the wife to stand by their college pledge never to let a man come between them. Now the husband and wife are trying for a baby, and she seethes with frustration and agitation. Each narrator brings out different facets of the characters’ personalities, often at odds with what others see. Peterside reveals the wife’s love for Temi and her husband, although she is outwardly passive and indecisive; Fairbrother simmers with rage at Temi’s manipulative misdeeds; and Miller brings out Temi’s breathless, somewhat unhinged intensity.