In this novel, an American orphan travels to Kenya and makes startling discoveries about his family pedigree.

Jude Wilson is abandoned as a baby and fortunately adopted by Tom and Doris. Jude is lovingly raised in Clarksville, Washington, a “placid, unassuming town.” His childhood is a happy, comfortable one, and he joins the Boy Scouts—his father is a scoutmaster—and learns to adore the outdoors. Despite being a Black youth in “lily-white Clarksville,” he’s largely untouched by the experience of racism and doesn’t seem particularly motivated to uncover his familial roots. But after Conor McKittrick, an old friend from high school, dies of cancer, Jude is inspired to seize the day and travel to Kenya to visit the graves of Lord Baden-Powell and Capt. Tom Wilson, both seminal figures in the history of the Boy Scouts. But Jude isn’t a worldly man—he’d never been on a plane before—and his naïveté makes him easy prey for criminal opportunists. In Kenya, he is drugged and robbed by a taxi driver and then arrested when he’s mistaken for a fugitive terrorist. But he meets a young man of Somalian descent, Qadir Mohamed, also an orphan, who might hold the key to unlocking the secrets of Jude’s lost past, a plot twist tenderly limned by Githaiga. The author is at his best depicting the experience of alienation: Qadir is doubly dislocated since his parents died when he was young, and as a Somalian, he routinely encounters prejudice in Nairobi. In addition, Githaiga has a keen eye for the ways in which an insidious brand of racism can exist beneath the surface of easily visible bigotry. Unfortunately, the plot ambles along at an unhurried pace. Moreover, the book’s obvious ending seems emotionally contrived, more formulaically cinematic than authentic.

An engaging but slow-paced tale about a man searching for his roots.

A secretly married couple’s lives are altered after a horrific road traffic accident in Githaiga’s novel.

William Henry Young and Laura Sullivan went to middle school together; they lost touch after attending college but are reunited in a chance meeting in a grocery store in Richmond, Virginia. Will, a Black physician, and Laura, a White teacher, later marry but choose not to tell Will’s parents due to their disapproval of him dating a White girl. One day, Will announces that he intends to quit his practice and begin working as a medical director of an insurance company in Virginia Beach. After they move, their relationship becomes fraught as Laura grows eager to announce their marriage after keeping it a secret for almost 10 years. Will, in a fit of temper, buys a Porsche and is involved in a car accident that leaves him comatose and paralyzed. After he awakens, his bitterness leads him to request a divorce, but the story takes a number of unexpected turns as his rehabilitation progresses. Githaiga, a practicing physician, is a shrewd writer who contrasts the sterility of the medical world with the messiness of human emotion. He astutely examines traumatic injury from the perspectives of the patient, other family members, medical staff, and even an insurance company. The author achieves this by building a credible network of minor characters, such as Keturah, Will’s nurse, who conveys telling information about Will’s dad: “His father seemed resolute and unemotional. She found him polite to a fault, but noticed he had difficulty with small talk.” This attention to detail is also discernable in Githaiga’s sometimes overly elaborate descriptive style, as when Laura attempts to swat a fly: “It masterfully eluded her and made a quick loop around, only to retreat again as her hand swung back reflexively.” Overall, the author invites the reader into a meticulously crafted world that makes Will and Laura’s triumphs and setbacks feel tangible.

An intricately constructed tale with observant prose.

In this novel, Kenya is the center of three lives connected by blood and friendship.

In Part 1, it’s 1952, and Kenya—long under colonial rule—is seeing violent clashes as the British try to put down the Mau Mau uprising. Atrocities and police raids affect the small village of Kĩandutu, home of 14-year-old Wambũi Karanja. Gifted in mathematics, Wambũi is accepted at a prestigious Kenyan boarding school, where she gains a mentor and friend in her White mathematics teacher, Eileen Atwood. Wambũi eventually marries shopkeeper Mwangi Kĩng’ori, discovering in herself an unexpected talent for business. In Part 2, Eileen is forced into retirement in 1989 and returns to England, where she feels like a stranger after more than 40 years away. Meanwhile, Wambũi’s son, Raymond, becomes a doctor, taking a residency at a Chicago hospital, where he experiences both prejudice and success. In his debut novel, Githaiga writes in the great realist tradition, sometimes recalling Victorian novelists like Dickens or, more recently, Vikram Seth. He paints on a wide canvas—investigating points of view of those disparate in age, gender, and nationality with equal attention and skill—in prose that’s lively but dignified. For example: “homesickness, that erstwhile banished companion, began to make an unwelcome comeback.” Racism is an important theme in the novel, all the more effectively explored because Githaiga uses a scalpel, not a hammer. Wambũi, taking the train to boarding school, notices a sign reading “WHITES ONLY. She turned left and continued walking.” Also thoughtfully considered is the complexity of immigration, as with Eileen’s story. Home, to her, is Kenya, where she’s never become a citizen.

A rich, absorbing story of destinies intertwined across time and space.