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Dele Weds Destiny: A stunning novel of friendship, love and home - the most heart-warming debut of 2022

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Tomi Obaro has given us a wonderful novel full of richly-drawn, complicated, nuanced characters all trying to love and connect with each other. An ode to the bonds of friendship across decades, Dele Weds Destinyis a marvelous debut.” –Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love.

Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destiny explores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home' - Raven Leilani, author of Luster A story rendered with so much heart.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo It's rare to find a book that speaks to you in a way that makes you reflect on your own choices. After reaching the end of the book, I found myself returning to the beginning again to really see how the stories of each character played out. I pondered how each individual changed and the possible driving factors. I really took the book further in my mind and invested myself in it, which is rare.A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destinyexplores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home.” –Raven Leilani, author of Luster Tomi Obaro wrote movingly about the push-pull of twinship in the essay “To Love Your Sister Is to Grieve Your Twin,” which was included in the Atlantic’s 2017 list of exceptional works of journalism. “Growing apart, or becoming sisters and not twins, was mostly horrifying,” Obaro wrote, “but sometimes it’s a relief.” Dami, who majored in political science, is now assistant attorney general for the state of New York. Their friendship is complicated but enduring, and over the course of the novel, the reader learns about their loves and losses. How Funmi stole Zainab’s boyfriend and became pregnant, only to have an abortion and lose the boyfriend to police violence. How Enitan was seduced by an American Peace Corps volunteer, the only one who ever really saw her, but is culturally so different from him—a Connecticut WASP—that raising their daughter together put them at odds. How Zainab fell in love with her teacher, a friend of her father’s, and ruptured her relationship with her father to have him.

Dami was Tomi’s first reader, but didn’t help shape Dele Weds Destiny—other than confirming it was worth reading. “We’re very honest with each other,” Tomi says. She shelved her first attempt at a novel—keeping only the title, Dele Weds Destiny—after Dami’s less-than-enthusiastic response. Richly entertaining . . . [a] debut novel of loyalty, betrayal, and ultimately the unwavering love that courses through our most intimate bonds.” — Oprah Daily Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Funmi is beautiful, brash, and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother's smothering and needy love; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father's first two wives after her mother's death in childbirth. Their friendship is complicated but enduring, and over the course of the novel, the reader learns about their loves and losses. How Funmi stole Zainab's boyfriend and became pregnant, only to have an abortion and lose the boyfriend to police violence. How Enitan was seduced by an American Peace Corps volunteer, the only one who ever really saw her, but is culturally so different from him--a Connecticut WASP--that raising their daughter together put them at odds. How Zainab fell in love with her teacher, a friend of her father's, and ruptured her relationship with her father to have him. Two other central characters in the novel are Funmi’s daughter, Destiny, and Enitan’s daughter, Remi, who often seem at odds with their mothers. How would you describe the relationship between Funmi and Destiny? Enitan and Remi?

Author Q&A

Tomi Obaro, AB’12, is not a middle-aged woman. But in her debut novel, Dele Weds Destiny(Knopf, 2022), Obaro writes about middle age poignantly and convincingly, as if it were familiar territory. Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destiny explores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home.”— Raven Leilani, author of Luster Through all of the terrible and wonderful things we’ve been through over the past few years, there’s one thing that remains constant: book clubs. Book clubs continue to be a wonderful way to meet people or to meet up with your friends and discuss something we all love.

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