If you are like most readers that is you read the summary of a novel at its back cover before borrowing or buying it, 'The
new tribe' by Dr. Buchi Emecheta is somewhat a disappointment. It purports to focus on the ordeals of Chester a black boy
adopted adopted by a white couple, The
Arlingtons. In such a novel one would expect the issue of racial prejudice to be central, sadly it is not. The writer struggles to bring the blackness and 'Africanness' of Chester to the fore front but she fails. She focuses more on the efficiency of The Arlingtons as parents to Chester and his sister Julia, both adopted. The book is more about middle class life and the neighbourhood than it is about a black boy trying to fit in a predominantly white society.
The book is written in a hurried manner such that every story starts and ends in two pages or so. the reader keeps reading on wondering when the main story will ever begin. But this again is its strong point, the fast pace of its plot makes it an easy read, even the laziest reader will finish the novel.
The writer also does well to keep the reader in suspense, she just wont say anything until it is its time.
Dr. Emecheta is an experienced writer and you can tell by the way she uses Chester dreams, imagination and a book Ginny wrote for Chester to tell the reader a little about Africa, or rather Africa as it was before colonization and modernization and globalization.
Out of ten I would give this book a six.