Whitcoulls Recommends: Dream Count and One Hundred Years of Betty

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This author is known and loved for her deeply moving and profound works of fiction (for me, particularly, Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun). This time it’s the story of four Nigerian women, and as such spans a wide geography from Africa to America with a great insight into their friendships, loves, regrets and world views. It’s very elegant and insightful storytelling – their lives were as authentic to me as those of women I actually know, and I loved it.

One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald. This is the fictional memoir of a woman who, on the eve of her 100th birthday looks back over her life, reflecting on the changes she’s seen throughout her century and the many unexpected opportunities that came her way. This was the evolution of a naïve young immigrant to Australia who ended up living a life she could never have imagined – with all its struggle, grief, success, loves, disappointments and surprises. Betty is a very ordinary character who somehow lived an extraordinary life and it’s a joy to read. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It is time to talk books and I'm joined by
Joe McKenzie. Good morning, Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
What have you got for us today? The first one's
quite exciting. It's called Dream Count by Chimamanda Nawsey Aditya,
who is a wonderful writer. The first two books she
wrote were called Purple Hibiscus and then Half of a
Yellow Son and Half of a Yellow Sun was set
in Biafra and I read it and in my head

(00:37):
the whole time as I read it was my mother
saying to me, if you don't eat your dinner tonight,
those poor kids in Biafra could have had it. And
it took me really back in time and back in history. Well,
this new one is current, it's modern day. It's the
story of four women who are all Nigerian. So the
story spans from Africa across to America where a couple

(00:58):
of them are living. And it's set in the time
of lockdown, which please don't let that put anybody off.
What lockdown does as a background is it gives them
lots of time for introspection and reflection, and this is
about the relationships between these four women as they talk
about their hopes and their loves and their regrets and
their disappointments, and they're really good friends. And reading it,

(01:19):
I felt with my own group of friends. They were
the kind of conversations that you would have and you
weren't always, you know, just outright sympathetic to your friends.
Sometimes you get irritated, or sometimes you're judgmental or you
don't agree with them. And so you've got this narrative
going on between these four women as they're talking about
what's going on in their lives. But one of the

(01:40):
things that really struck me about the book was one
of the characters is a woman called Carrier Too, and
she is a housemaid in a New York hotel and
a VIP guest comes along and one day assaults her.
Now that part of the book is set on the
real life story if you remember, of Dominique strauss Kahan,

(02:00):
who was the head of the International Monetary Fund and
behave very bad in the New York hotel and subsequently
lost his job. And she's taken that story to portray
what life can be like for these people who are
trying to do the very best for their children and
make their way through their lives, and it just isn't
made easy for them. And I think she's done a

(02:21):
wonderful job of portraying that she writes so beautifully. Is
this the first time that she's written in a modern time?
Americana was her third book, which was the last one,
and that was also set in contemporary America Africa? But yes,
she is wonderful. We've waited ten years for this and
it's well worth the way.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I was going to say, I've got two to catch
up on them. Tell me about the book released by
Debra Oswald.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
It's called One hundred Years of Betty and it is
the fictional story of a woman who's about to turn
one hundred and she's looking back over her life and
takes you through the course of her life and all
of the things that have happened. And when she started
out she was English and she went out to Australia
as an immigrant, very naive, very little about the world.

(03:08):
And I think for most of us as we age,
when we look back at what's happened to us in
our lives, so much of it was unexpected and we
never imagined these things would happen to us, with these
possibilities and opportunities would come up. And they do, of
course for her, as they do for everybody. But she
takes you back through what it's been like. She had
a deeply unhappy marriage. She has a son that she

(03:29):
feels that she failed for various reasons. But it's set
against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, of the rise
of women's liberation, about the AIDS crisis. It's got some
really interesting history backstory in there along with her story,
and it's just warm and charming and one of those
books that you can just immerse yourself in.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I loved it fantastic. One hundred Years of Betty by
Deborah Oswald was the last book that Joan mentioned. The
first book was dream Count by Chimamundu gausey are today.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
John.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
We'll talk next week.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
See you then.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
For more from the Sunday's session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.