[Buchi Emecheta's account in "The Joys of Motherhood"] of three generations of Ibo women and their changing values with regard to the children they raise and the men they wed is refreshingly straightforward….

The values of her women change, of course, so history can be seen through the lives of these characters. But they don't see themselves as acting in history. (p. 15)

A reader who has no real feeling for village traditions in Nigeria may suspect that Miss Emecheta is romanticizing them to advance a cause….

Nnu Ego is aware of "new rules" governing the relationship between man and wife in Lagos and spells them out, sometimes as if she, rather than Miss Emecheta, had the degree in sociology from London University….

The basic argument is put in the novel [schematically] …, but as episode piles on episode, the texture of the changing society becomes palpable. And this is...