Introduction

A New York Times Notable Book
The New York Times’ Critics’ Top Books of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio, The Economist, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Southern Living, HelloGiggles, and Shelf Awareness
Huffington Post’s Best Feminist Books of the Year
The New York Post’s Most Thrilling and Fascinating Books of the Year
The New York Public Library’s Ten Best Books of the Year

"A stunning debut novel." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

This celebrated, unforgettable first novel (“A bright, big-hearted demonstration of female spirit.” –The Guardian), shortlisted for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction and set in Nigeria, gives voice to both husband and wife as they tell the story of their marriage--and the forces that threaten to tear it apart. 

Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage--after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures--Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time--until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant. Which, finally, she does--but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. An electrifying novel of enormous emotional power, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of August 2017: “This book nearly destroyed me; you gotta read it." That’s what a colleague said to me about Ayobami Adebayo’s searing debut novel, Stay with Me (and not sadistically!). Taking place in Nigeria, it's the story of Yejide and Akin--a young married couple who are experiencing fertility issues. When the in-laws’ solution is a second wife, they conspire separately to save their relationship, with devastating consequences. I quickly gathered what my colleague meant--much of this novel is a series of unfortunate events. So much so, and sometimes to such cinematic extremes, that when Adebayo interjects humor into the narrative, it’s easily mistaken for something sinister (even when it involves breastfeeding a goat). But her gift is making these extremes make sense. After all, it’s some of our most intimate and profound struggles that can compel us to react in the craziest of ways—ways that just might destroy what was meant to be preserved. Adebayo is such a skilled storyteller that you will forgive Yejide and Akin some serious trespasses; you will weep for their once-happy union that buckles so spectacularly beneath the weight of cultural pressures--pressures that warp their sense of what constitutes a worthwhile life. The couple’s efforts to disentangle their true desires from the ones tradition and society have foisted upon them is what imbues Stay with Me with unexpected power, and heart. You definitely gotta read it. --Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review

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