In Other Words My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Doubleday, 226 pages
Korede has never felt like the pretty sister. A nurse who works in a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, she is the down-to-earth one, while her comely younger sister is an Instagram influencer and fashion designer. Men fall in love with Ayoola the instant they set eyes on her — a fact of Korede’s life since they were teenagers. She has always been responsible for taking care of Ayoola, whether that meant protecting her from their physically abusive father or helping clean up the crime scene after Ayoola murders yet another one of her boyfriends.
Despite her better instincts, Korede shows up to help dispose of a body every time she receives an urgent late-night call from Ayoola. Ayoola always claims to have acted in self-defense. Korede knows that after three dead bodies, you are considered a serial killer. And with Femi — a handsome and sensitive poet who is the latest to die — Ayoola has hit that count.
Braithwaite asks the reader whether a man who sees a woman’s soul is worth more than a man who is besotted by a pretty face.
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel My Sister, The Serial Killer, is a comedic page-turner that contains a few moments of true pathos, as well as many occasions to ponder some of life’s deeper philosophical and moral issues. Korede is loyal to a fault, even when she has misgivings about whether or not her sister is telling the truth. Korede is ceaselessly judgmental of everyone. Her harshest opinions are of the other nurses at the hospital and some of the men on the janitorial staff. No one really lives up to her standards. She tends to idealize professional men, who she perceives to be kind and respectful — whether that be a doctor at work or one of her sister’s victims. Why, she wonders, does everyone love Ayoola so much when it is obvious that Ayoola doesn’t love them back? And when Korede’s work crush swoons the first time he meets Ayoola, she begins to fear for his safety, while also resenting his inability to resist what she considers her sister’s shallow charms. Social media is part of the story’s setting, as well as a plot mechanism. One of Ayoola’s victims is mourned on social media, at least until his hashtag stops trending. Online, people give away their locations, falsify their alibis, and present one kind of life while living another. Braithwaite shows us that real-life interactions are darker and more confusing than the sort of two-dimensional version of life we accept when we only go by what someone chooses to post. This plane of existence is crucial to Ayoola, who can’t help but flaunt her conquest every time she meets a new guy.
Braithwaite asks the reader whether a man who sees a woman’s soul is worth more than a man who is besotted by a pretty face. And she asks us to consider two sisters who were regularly and savagely beaten by their father, and what patterns of power, rage, and rescue might be set in motion by that trauma. Questions begin to arise about which sister is more or less connected to reality. Braithwaite unwinds her story in short, pithy chapters that are never ponderous and always leave the reader anticipating what could possibly happen next. But for an ostensibly humorous novel, the effects of My Sister, The Serial Killer could potentially inspire a reader to seriously evaluate their personal code of ethics.