The perils of naming a book

I’ve written a memoir, a personal memoir and it’s taken me 4 years to do it.

After pouring out my memories – both joyous and distressing, I’ve come to that part of the journey where I’m trying to figure out what to call this ‘thing” that I’ve created.

I’m a consummate movie fan and I recall reading somewhere that Woody Allen never had a name for the movies he was about to shoot. ‘Fall project [insert year]’ was always what was printed on his scripts through shooting, until a name emerged.

I don’t know about the truth or accuracy of that story, but I remember it all these years later. I was always curious about the notion of a name simply “appearing” – almost like one embarks on a journey in the mist, not knowing what lies ahead. And when the journey is travelled and all is experienced, something emerges out of the darkness that helps to encapsulate the experience, to put the experience into words. I kind of like that notion.

Truthfully my book was simply “memoir about my father” for a very long time.

As I researched Nigeria for sections of my book, I came across a wonderful poem titled “Lagos” by a Nigerian poet called Micheal Ordia.

The poem captured the essence of the Lagos that I was writing about, the Lagos that serves as the backdrop of my father’s story. A Lagos of wheeling and dealing, of struggle and hustle, and a Lagosian people that will do anything to survive.

The final stanza in the poem reads:

“In this great city of hidden wealth, we must be rich even if it means death”.

Wow! I thought to myself, blown away by the truth captured in these few words. A sentence that sums up my father’s story so perfectly and so tragically.

For a long time after this, I thought I would call my book “We Must Be Rich” and then have some sort of sub-title.

But somehow, as much as I liked the sentiment, I didn’t feel satisfied that this was THE name. There is something incredibly crass about the ruthlessness of what lies at the heart of “we must be rich.”

In the book, the house that I grew up in on Oduduwa Crescent, played a pivotal role. You see the house emerge from my father’s imagination, inspired by pictures in Architectural Digest, to a physical place constructed from brick, mortar, tile and wood. It was the house where I had my fondest memories, a house that seemed to brim with life and love. But as time passes in the book and strange and absurd occurrences take place, you witness the house fall into disrepair alongside my father’s own destruction. I realized as I edited my book, that the house was like a metaphor for my father’s life – a meteoric rise characteriszed by success and the beautiful trappings of wealth, followed by an equally meteoric fall steeped in shame and destruction.

It came to me one day – call the book “Oduduwa Crescent.” I like the way it rolls off the tongue, I LOVE the word “Crescent” and I particularly love the name “Oduduwa” – the name of the father of the Yoruba people. The symbolism is ironic, I think.

As for subtitle, well this was a whole thing, here are some of the ideas I played around with:

• Untangling the secret con that killed my father
• A memoir of secrets, deadly cons and my beloved father
• A daughter’s journey into the dark heart of Nigeria’s online Empire of greed.

Talking to my writing coach she suggested brevity: A Family. A Deception. A Long Con. 

I loved it!

So, after all that, I have come to that place on my journey where I’m thinking that my book will be called:

ODUDUWA CRESCENT

A Family. A Deception. A Long Con. 

A memoir by Anike Wariebi

What do you think?