A compelling but uneven refugee tale.
A boy from Sierra Leone must escape his city and become a refugee in this debut novel.
Saah Kamandu has a safe life in Freetown. He is the only son of a local elder and will one day be expected to take on the same leadership role. But for now, Saah is a young boy trying to get through primary school and make his family proud. This is no small task for a boy who also desires to skip his homework and play soccer with his friends each day. He has a loving family, money for an education, and a stable home. The rebels and their war against the Sierra Leone government are in the villages, not in Freetown. Until the conflict comes to Saah’s street. He and his brother-in-law narrowly escape forced conscription in the rebel army, but by running, they become refugees. Saah’s only hope for a better life lies in leaving his country and his identity behind. His odyssey takes him to a refugee camp in Ghana and eventually to Australia, where he confronts a new set of challenges. Bell’s gripping novel works best when the drama and tension surface not just from the violence of war and the terror of refugees, but from smaller moments that engage the senses. When Saah and his brother-in-law escape Sierra Leone in a fishing boat packed with other refugees, so stuffed no one is allowed to move for fear of capsizing the vessel, the author skillfully portrays the passengers’ discomfort: “They were sitting in salty water, greasy with engine oil, and constantly threatening to swamp the boat.” But Bell rarely spends much time relating the physical experiences of her characters. In an early confrontation, the rebels chop off Saah’s hand with an ax. Although the author mentions that the salt water on the boat “dried out his lips, made his eyes smart, and invaded every scratch and graze from the past few days,” she does not address his arm’s bloody stump and how that would be affected by the sea spray. While not exactly a continuity error, this passage may cause readers to go back and make sure they understood what happened: Did Saah really lose his hand? The answer is yes, though the narrative doesn’t always embody that reality. Still, Bell creates a sympathetic and complex protagonist who endures a daunting journey.
A compelling but uneven refugee tale.Pub Date: July 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9845-0681-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: XlibrisAU
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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