A Story Of Cameroon Immigrants In America
"Behold the Dreamers" (2016) is the first novel of Imbolo Mbue, a native of Limbe, Cameroon who has settled in the United States. The Republic of Cameroon is located on the west coast of central Africa, and the town of Limbe is located in western Cameroon on the Atlantic Ocean. Mbue's novel tells the story of a family from Cameroon who immigrate to New York City in pursuit of their dreams.
Jendre Jonga, 38, his wife Neni, and six year old son Liomi struggle to live in a cramped, roach-infested apartment in Harlem. While in Harlem, the couple has a daughter, Timba. The Jongas' status in the United States is uncertain and they face the constant threat of deportation. At the outset of the story, Jendre drives a cab while Neni holds down a job and attends college with the dream of becoming a pharmacist. The Jongas' lives soon become intertwined with the lives of a successful American couple when Jendre gets a well-paying job in the fall of 2007 as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, an executive at Lehman Brothers. The relationship gradually develops from business into near-friendship. Neni gets a job for the summer months helping Edwards' wife at their summer home. The Edwards have two sons, Vince, who has dropped out of Law School to meditate in India and a much younger boy, Mighty.
The United States suffered from a financial meltdown in 2008 spearheaded by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. This meltdown is central to the novel as it affects the lives of the Edwards and the Jongas. Both couples face difficult decisions and stresses on their marriages. They must make changes in their lives due to the near-collapse of the American economy. The novel shows a great deal of the intertwined fates of these two highly different families. Most of the story is shown through the perspective of the Jongas.
Mbue's novel shows a great deal of life in New York City. The book captures the bustle and verve of this greatest of American cities. Mbue develops a large group of characters, some of whom are immigrants such as the Jongas. The characters include lawyers, executives, doctors, college professors and administrators, office workers, ministers and others. The characterizations are well-developed and they add a great deal of texture to the story. The book also shows something of life in Cameroon, a place that most Americans will find unfamiliar. Throughout the novel, the Jongas are torn between their ambition to make a success of their lives in the United States and a remembrance of the former lives in Limbe.
The novel adroitly raises many ethical questions involving both the Jonga and the Edwards families. The book shows considerable insight into the ambiguities of its characters and the difficulties of moral choice. The sharply paced, materialistic. and economically teetering nature of American life, both with the Meltdown and without it is also shown in both its appeal and its pitfalls. The overall tone of the book is sad.
As do countless novels, the book questions the nature of the American Dream, but the novel does not, on the whole, become shrill. In the following passage near the end of the novel, Nene reflects on the promise of New York City life and on what her children would lose by abandoning it.
"They would lose the opportunity to grow up in a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers. They would lose the chance to be awed and inspired by amazing things happening in the country, incredible inventions and accomplishments by men and women who look like them. They would be deprived of freedom, rights, and privileges that Cameroon could not give its children. They would lose unquantifiable benefits by leaving New York City, because while there existed great towns and cities all over the world, there was a certain kind of pleasure, a certain kind of adventurous and audacious childhood, that only New York City could offer a child."
For the most part, I became absorbed with this novel and with the dilemmas faced by its characters. Some of the scenes and the writing are less effective than is the novel on the whole, and the book probably could have been shorter. Still this was an excellent first novel. I learned something about life in Cameroon, a country that had been entirely unfamiliar to me. I also was moved by the depiction of immigrant life, and I was reminded again of the promise and the difficulty of American life.
Robin Friedman
