The darkly comic events of Oyinkan Braithwaite's debut novel unfold as briskly as a classic noir, but with a contemporary tone in a setting unfamiliar to many American readers: modern-day Lagos, Nigeria.

Our narrator is the prickly Korede, a highly regarded but unpopular nurse at a Lagos hospital. Lonely, she confides her dreams and secrets to a coma patient in her ward. But one of her secrets could have dangerous repercussions: Korede's charming younger sister, Ayoola, has murdered three of her boyfriends. She hasn't been caught—yet—because Korede meticulously cleans up after her. After they dispose of the most recent victim, Ayoola drops by Korede's hospital for a visit. When Korede's doctor crush, Tade, is instantly smitten by her sister's beauty, Korede must decide what to do. Should she intervene? Or let her sister's madness take Tade's life as well?

Unassuming, self-assured and with an infectious laugh, Braithwaite explains her style in a call to her home in Lagos. "I've always been drawn to dark subject matter," she says. "One of my first stories took place in the woods and was told from the point of view of the trees and plants, observing as a girl wandered into a clearing and then killed herself. To me, it was a wildly romantic tale of nature and a beautiful stranger walking to her death. But my parents were concerned and thought maybe I'd experienced a trauma they didn't know about. I was completely oblivious to what was upsetting them—I thought something was wrong with them!"

For My Sister, the Serial Killer, it's no surprise Braithwaite had a "black widow" motif on her mind. "I've always been fascinated by black widow spiders and the idea of women killing their mates," she says. This darkness is balanced by Korede's matter-of-fact, almost deadpan observations and the author's sly, skillful wit—but it is the interdependence of the two sisters that brings a more sinister tone. The reader learns about the sisters' childhood, their abusive, now deceased father and the mother who failed to protect them. It's easy to wonder if the sisters' twisted connection has roots in their father's brutality and to speculate over what really caused his untimely death. But Braithwaite keeps some things a secret—even from herself. "It's fun to keep it as much a mystery to me as it is to the reader," she says. "I've come to terms with what I think happened, but I don't know for sure."

The sisters' relationship is so complex that readers may wonder which sister is the heroine and which the villain—or if it's even possible to discern between the two. Like femme fatales in a noir thriller, their machinations are so wild and engaging that it becomes easy to cheer them on. Braithwaite agrees, stating with her characteristic laugh, "I suppose they are villains, I mean, they are killers. But honestly, I just found them adorable."

The novel is also notable for its melding of the thriller genre with satirical commentary on beauty and femininity. "This may be a Nigerian thing, but people are very outspoken here about looks," Braithwaite says.

"With my sister and I, people feel free to let us know which of the two of us they think is more attractive all the time, saying, ‘Oh, you were the fine one before, I don't know what happened, but your sister is the more attractive one now.' I imagine Korede and Ayoola and how after years of hearing something like this, they couldn't help but be affected by it."

"I've always been fascinated by black widow spiders and the idea of women killing their mates."

In a novel filled with references to Instagram and social media, Braithwaite also drew inspiration from internet culture—and the way "beautiful people" are treated both in real life and online. "Did you ever hear about ‘Prison Bae'?" the author asks, referring to Jeremy Meeks, a convicted felon whose mug shot went viral on Facebook. "People were going crazy about him because he was so good-looking. . . . I don't think people even cared what crimes he committed. People were willing to excuse anything because of his good looks."

The disconnect between the chaos of real life and the online presentation of an attractive, curated life gives the novel a crisp, up-to-the minute appeal. "I am fascinated by the facetiousness of social media," Braithwaite admits. "It almost feels like people go out of their way to create an online life that isn't even remotely true. I think it's dangerous."

So is the case with the two sisters. Some of the novel's most humorous moments are when Ayoola needs to be constantly reminded to not post selfies with her new boyfriend immediately after her previous boyfriend (deceased and disposed of) has disappeared.

Braithwaite's references to social media are so seamless that it's a surprise to know she grappled with including them. "It felt so new and different," she says. "I was hesitant at first. I grew up on the great books—my favorite novel is Jane Eyre, and obviously none of [those books] had social media in them. I don't know, it almost seemed unrefined. But once I got into it, I realized how well it helped tell the story."

With the movie rights already sold, My Sister, the Serial Killer is poised to be a big hit, but Braithwaite is quick to admit that a skyrocketing career was not what she was expecting. "I always wanted to be an author, and there were so many ways I imagined it would go," she says. "I was a little bit scared when things started to happen so quickly with this book. It doesn't seem quite right, almost like I skipped a few steps. But I'm so grateful at the way everything has turned out."

 

This article was originally published in the December 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Author photo by Studio 24.

★The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
A 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers is a poignant novel of the AIDS epidemic that follows a Chicago-based group of friends who are contending with the rise of the disease in the 1980s. Yale Tishman is planning a major art show, but his success is overshadowed by the deaths that are sweeping through the gay community. As he weathers the loss of colleagues and companions, his closest confidante is Fiona, the sister of his late friend Nico. Thirty years later, Fiona is searching for her daughter, Claire, in Paris. Her relationship with Claire is a fraught one, and Fiona struggles to make sense of it while continuing to process the heartbreak of the epidemic. Makkai skillfully connects the plotlines of the past and present, exploring the fears and misconceptions connected to the epidemic and demonstrating their impact on her characters. Filled with larger-than-life personalities, Makkai’s wise and compassionate novel bears witness to an important era.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Ayoola has a habit of dispatching her boyfriends, and she relies on her sister, Korede, to help her tidy up after each murder. Braithwaite’s multilayered, darkly funny novel explores the power of desire and female agency.

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
Tokarczuk, one of Poland’s most beloved writers, tackles identity, travel and the nature of home in these breathtaking short essays and stories.

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy by Anne Boyd Rioux
Rioux provides insights into the life of Louisa May Alcott and the writing of Little Women, examining the novel’s enduring appeal and its contemporary significance.

The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher
Schumacher’s satirical take on academia—its complexities and insular nature—feels spot on, and she offers an appealing protagonist in Jason Fitger, a long-suffering English professor.

Korede is dreamy-eyed about the charming doctor at the hospital where she works, so when he falls for her sister, Ayoola, she knows she must act fast—just not for the reasons you would expect. It seems that Ayoola has the unfortunate habit of knocking off her boyfriends. A pungently dark and funny story from a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Nigerian nurse Korede's younger sister Ayoola has a bad habit of killing her boyfriends and relying on Korede's practicality and knack for cleaning to dispose of the bodies. Ayoola is the family's "golden child"—beautiful, charming, spoiled, and quite possibly a sociopath. Someone with whom plain, responsible Korede can never hope to compete. But when Ayoola sets her sights on a handsome doctor Korede just happens to adore, Korede must make a choice. Can she save the man she loves and still keep her sister's secrets? Narrated at times with an almost clinical detachment, Braithwaite's debut takes the unusual position of looking not at the mind of a serial killer or at her victims, but at the ethical dilemmas faced by the killer's family members. Many readers will relate to Korede's overlooked, underappreciated role, as she struggles to find her own way in the shadow of a more attractive, better-loved sibling. VERDICT A portrait of a dysfunctional family at its finest, this novel shows just how far one woman will go to keep her family safe, even if it costs her everything. [See Prepub Alert, 5/21/18; "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 8/18.]—Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola

Braithwaite's blazing debut is as sharp as the knife that twists in the chest of Femi, the now-dead boyfriend of Ayoola, whose boyfriends, curiously, seem to keep winding up dead in her presence. Femi makes dead boyfriend number three—each were killed in self-defense, according to Ayoola—and, per usual, Ayoola's older sister, Korede, is called upon to help dispose of the body. The only confidante Korede has is a coma patient at the Lagos hospital where she works, which is the only place she can go to escape Ayoola. It is also where she can see the man she loves, a handsome and thoughtful doctor named Tade. Of course, this means that when the capricious Ayoola decides to start visiting her sister at work, she takes notice of him, and him of her. This is the last straw for Korede, who realizes she is both the only person who understands how dangerous her sister is and the only person who can intervene before her beloved Tade gets hurt, or worse. Interwoven with Korede, Ayoola, and Tade's love triangle is the story of Korede and Ayoola's upbringing, which is shadowed by the memory of their father, a cruel man who met a tragic and accidental death—or did he? As Korede notes when she considers her own culpability in her sister's temperament: "His blood is my blood and my blood is hers." The reveal at the end isn't so much a "gotcha" moment as the dawning of an inevitable, creeping feeling that Braithwaite expertly crafts over the course of the novel. This is both bitingly funny and brilliantly executed, with not a single word out of place. (Nov.)