Robert's Reviews > The Woman Next Door

Bailey's Women's Prize for Women's Fiction 5/16

First of all The Woman Next Door is a good book. I did not mind the writing and the characters were ok. There are flaws though and these occur throughout the whole novel.

The plot deals with Hortensia and Marion, two widows who live next door to each other and quarrel regularly. Hortense is black, Caribbean born while Marion is a Lithuanian Jewess. Both have been successful in their careers and both have suffered hardships of some sort. The setting is post apartheid South Africa, where racism exists but in a more subtle format.

There is a TON of potential with a plot like this and Omotoso tries to stuff everything in this novel and that's where the problems start.

Is The Woman Next Door about racism?, about women's rights? friendship? facing fears? a meditation on death? is it about architecture? textile design? about the sins of the past? Religion? Chauvinistic attitudes? The problem is that way too many subplots are crammed into the book so that none of them give the book depth. Every good idea is fleeting and I found that annoying, and the subplot with the reclaimed land of the village would have been a terrific idea but I felt that it was dealt with badly so it appeared as a waste of ink. However when Omotoso sheds all the million good ideas and focuses on the actual friendship/rivalry between Hortensia and Marion then some great passages crop up. As it is though, The Woman Next Door is an frustrating read.