During a Dry Season weaves the vivid sights and sounds of urban Nigeria into a complicated story of a poor Brooklyn girl's life in her wealthy husband's country. When her troublesome mother-in-law arrives on the first winds of Nigeria's dry season, Garnett Adewale's hopes for happiness are blown away. In a culture that demands respect for elders, she is powerless against the old woman, who hates her because she is an American with a womb that is "as barren as a brick." Blindly in love, Garnett tolerates her husband's infidelity and tries to cope with his beautiful but bewildering country. It all begins to collapse when her mother-in-law goads her into telling a desperate lie. The events that follow soon bring this story of love, betrayal, corruption, and cultural conflict to a violent end.