The Edge of Water by Olofunke Grace Bankole

A glittering, multigenerational novel of daughters, mothers, and the rippling consequences of flawed men

The Edge of Water tells the story of three women—Esther, her daughter Amina, and her granddaughter Laila—each from their own perspective. 

But there’s an additional perspective—a character who floats above the earthly plane and knows all. Iyanifa, conduit of the Oracle of Knowledge, speaks with the knowledge of all three women at once, conscious of what’s coming and what’s already come. This languid prophetic voice acts almost as an epigraph to each alternating perspective. It’s not that Iyanifa provides spoilers—it’s more that she knows the connection among the women already, beyond blood, which makes the multigenerational threads weave in and out fluidly.

Each pebble, or boulder, causes ripples in the river of time in Bankole’s Edge of Water.

We start with Esther. A young woman in Nigeria writing to her daughter Amina. She’s writing to tell her the truth of how Amina came to be. 

Truth is: it starts not with her father, but with the boy she really loved, Joseph. Sani (Esther’s husband and Amina’s father) tricked Esther to be with her. He told her that he was taking Esther to meet up with Joseph—because Sani knew she liked Joseph—but he drove her into the woods instead. And once word spread that she lost her virginity (however unwillingly) to Amina’s father, their parents decide the best thing to do is arrange their marriage. Even in Esther’s story, the grandmother in The Edge of Water, we see the ripples of parental decision-making. It all carries down. Amina deserves to know who she came from. 

When Amina’s father betrays Amina as well, we see the everlasting shadow that the word father can cast over us. If he’s still in their lives, he can cause damage. It’s not the act itself that feels so heartbreaking in The Edge of Water but the way Amina responds to it—the expectant, unsurprised way. However they arrive, the women must overcome the ripples of bad men. 

And Amina does—despite a divination telling her mother that she should stay in America. Still, Esther helps her go. Amina moves to New Orleans and embarks on a complicated journey that results in the birth of her own daughter, Laila, and the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. With all we’ve learned from the generations before her, we know Laila before Laila knows Laila. But soon, she’ll head out on her own story, interwoven with her own history—all seen by Iyanifa.

The Edge of Water is a triumph of multigenerational fiction. It’s a story of interconnected threads, holding on by the strength and love of its women. It’s a story about the history in our blood, the repercussions that follow across time and continents. This debut is a remarkable one. A book that beckons us to follow Bankole wherever she plans to take us next.