This Side Jordan by Margaret Laurence

It’s no secret that I love Margaret Laurence, particularly her novel A Jest of God, but I’ve always been a bit nervous of reading her debut novel. This Side Jordan (1960) breaks one of my cardinal rules for choosing novels. I call it ‘the Brits abroad’ rule in my head and, though Laurence is Canadian, it still stands. If I’m reading a novel set in a country other than mine, I prefer it to be by someone from that country – and that is doubly true when it’s a white person writing about an African country. And yet – I thought I’d trust Laurence and risk this novel, set in Ghana. More particularly, it is set in 1957 on the cusp of independence, as Ghana was about to get that name after decades as a British colony called the Gold Coast. Laurence herself spent five years there as her husband, Jack, was stationed in the country as an engineer. She had a first-hand view of what life was like as a colonial immigrant (I never use the word ‘ex-pat’, which is almost always a whitewash of…