The Thing Around Your Neck

Told in second person, the main character, a woman named Akunna, has “won the American visa lottery” and is leaving Lagos to go stay with her uncle in America (102). He lives in Maine, and he tells her living in America has both pros and cons. At first, Akunna enjoys staying with her uncle, who is actually the brother of her father’s sister’s husband, and his wife and children. He then attempts to coerce her into having sex with him, however, and Akunna leaves.

She ends up in Connecticut, working as a waitress. She can’t afford to go to school now that she is paying rent, so she reads course syllabi online and follows the reading lists. She misses home and sends money back every month. She begins to want to write letters, telling stories about waitressing, but because she can’t afford to send gifts, she does not. Lying in bed, Akunna feels a pressure around her neck. At the diner Akunna meets a white man who knows about Africa, asking her respectful questions and discussing African poetry with her. He eventually asks her out. She says no the first few times he asks but becomes scared that he’ll stop asking and says yes.