by Cathryn Conroy (Gaithersburg, Maryland): It takes a bit of literary courage to read this 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel by Bernardine Evaristo because there are no capital letters to signal the start of a new sentence and no punctuation save a very rare period, question mark, or semicolon. But strategically-placed line breaks and the human brain’s amazing ability to adjust make it a lot easier to read than I imagined before I started it.
But most important: This is an incredible book. It is intelligent and literary, but also captivating and filled with a big heart. It’s everything a novel should be. I would give it 10 stars if I could!
While it most definitely is a novel, it’s also a hybrid, doubling as a collection of interrelated short stories. There are 12 characters. They are all women. They are all Black. They all live in London. Some are lesbians, some are straight, some are young, some are old. They all have a fascinating story that ranges from the joyful to the tragic. This is human life on full display. And once I got going and got into its unusual rhythm, which is almost poetic, I couldn’t put it down.
The 12 characters are divided into related groups of three with the stories told in four chapters. The fifth chapter brings everything together.
• Chapter One: Amma, Yazz, and Dominque Amma is a 50-something lesbian who successfully manages an experimental theatre group. Yazz, Amma’s daughter, is a university student who is really good at exploiting her gay father and multiple godparents. Dominque is Amma’s friend and is smitten with a statuesque stranger named Nzinga she meets in a train station; the two become a couple and Dominque suffers greatly in this psychologically and physically abusive relationship.
• Chapter Two: Carole, Bummi, and LaTisha Carole’s story begins when she is gang-raped at age 13. After a year of hiding in her room, she emerges as the most brilliant student in her class. Her trajectory is nothing short of stellar. Bummi is Carole’s mother. After her husband’s untimely death from a heart attack, Bummi has raised Carole by herself, far from her homeland of Nigeria. LaTisha is Carole’s best friend from childhood, but the two couldn’t be more different. LaTisha’s story is so familiar: by the time she is 21, she has three children by three baby daddies and no husband.
• Chapter Three: Shirley, Winsome, and Penelope Shirley is a teacher at the troubled Peckham School for Boys and Girls where she endures taunting from the students and derision from her colleagues, but her heart is in educating kids. Winsome, Shirley’s mother, is now retired with her husband, Clovis, and they are living in Barbados. Their children, the spouses, and grandchildren all visit for two weeks one summer, causing old memories to surface. Penelope is also a teacher at Shirley’s school, and the two have a long love/hate friendship.
• Chapter Four: Megan/Morgan, Hattie, and Grace Megan/Morgan, Hattie, and Grace are daughter, mother, and grandmother. Theirs is a complicated and horrifying story, but one filled with love for each other.
• Chapter Five: The After-party During the after-party for Amma’s new hit play about lesbian warriors, the disparate characters come together in one room, creating lots of sparks.
This imaginative and ingeniously plotted novel is truly extraordinary. The big and bold characters feel so real. Their profound and moving stories went straight to my heart. Taken as a whole, the book is provocative and haunting, as well as tender and wise. Above all, it is daring.
Do you dare read it? Oh, please do!
