Rich in local color and history, yet never quite reaches an affecting emotional pitch.
From Ethiopian-born memoirist Nega (Notes from the Hyena’s Belly, 2000): a first novel about star-crossed lovers that’s also a tart fictional history of Ethiopia in the twilight years of its ancient feudal kingdom, soon to be coveted by Europeans.
Mezlekia’s tale of forbidden love in unsettled times is replete with the retelling of old legends and acts of magical realism. Spirits appear in whirls of dust, creatures like the Abettors decide wars, and magical potions revive the dying. The tone, though, is often ironic and the observations contemporary as Nega describes germ warfare and weapons similar to missiles, as well as a fanatical priest bent on rooting out heresy. Luminously evoking a country where drought is endemic, the landscape austere, and food in short supply, the narrator, a warrior, Teferi—“the feared one”—relates the consequences of the birth of Aster, a daughter, to Count Ashenafi. Aster is an exceptional child who is tutored by the kingdom’s best scholars and guarded jealously by her protective father, but in her teens, even so, she falls in love with court comedian and jester, the clever slave, young Gudu. The two start writing a book, but their relationship is discovered and Gudu must leave the court. This love story is played out against a background of battles and ruthless regimes as the fanatical priest Reverend Yimam starts an inquisition to root out heresy in the court. While Aster dreams of escaping to join Gudu, he himself joins a band of rebels intent on defeating Yimam. The entire country is soon a battlefield as cities are besieged and sacked, and treachery is everywhere as fighters change sides and Gudu is taken prisoner—and tortured. When her father tries to stop Aster from going to Gudu’s aid, she finds a way out that even he is powerless to prevent.
Rich in local color and history, yet never quite reaches an affecting emotional pitch.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-28701-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
A fascinating novel that fails to stick its landing.
A debut novel about class strife, masculinity, and brotherhood in contemporary Trinidad.
Adam—herself a native of Trinidad—tells the story of Paul and Peter Deyalsingh, twins of Indian descent whose lives rapidly diverge. Paul is socially awkward, a bundle of nervous tics and strange habits, and from a young age he is dubbed unhealthy by his industrious father, Clyde, who works tirelessly doing physical labor at a petroleum plant in order to afford a better life for his children—or, at least, one of them. As he ages, his family becomes convinced that he is "slightly retarded," and he is marked as doomed in comparison to his precociously intelligent brother, Peter—the "healthy" child. After Peter's unexpected success on a standardized test, Clyde and his wife, Joy, single him out as gifted while communicating to Paul that his possibilities are far more limited. Joy works hard to keep her children together—"The boys are twins. They must stay together," she frequently demands—but Peter's intellectual gifts create a chasm between him and Paul. Peter is destined to leave the island, while Paul's horizon never exceeds hard labor, like his father before him. Despite the efforts of Father Kavanagh, a kindly Irish Catholic priest who takes it upon himself to teach Paul, the family is forced to make an irrevocable decision that will determine the boys' fates. Adam excels at sympathetically depicting the world of economic insecurity, unpredictable violence, limited opportunity, and mutual distrust that forces Clyde and Joy to make their fateful decision. Unfortunately, however, the novel telegraphs its biggest plot twist. One can see the narrative gears turning very early, and as a result Clyde's decision isn't harrowing; by the time its necessary consequences unfold, a reader might be less moved than Adam hopes. It doesn't help that many of the characters are sketchily drawn at best. Clyde, Joy, and Peter are not vividly depicted, and the decision that renders Paul disposable seems to emanate out of a psychological vacuum. In the absence of any emotional stakes, the last third of the novel unfolds like a generic thriller. That's unfortunate, as Adam has otherwise written an incisive and loving portrait of contemporary Trinidad. Paul is the most fully realized character: Adam movingly depicts his struggle to break free of his family's conceptions of his abilities. As a result, the novel is most moving when it becomes a heart-rending character study of post-colonial adolescence that recalls V.S. Naipaul and George Lamming.
A fascinating novel that fails to stick its landing.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-57299-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: SJP for Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
None
"If you can't deal with the morning, get out of the game." Maria Wyeth can't deal with the mornings or the long, disintegrating nights—she's been married to and divorced by Carter; she has a hopelessly damaged four-year-old and the insistent, regretful memory of an abortion; she's made a film or two; and she drifts from Hollywood to New York to Las Vegas and from bars to motels.In fact she's the kind of girl whom one of her looser contacts will call up and say "Did I catch you in the middle of an overdose" and this is the kind of scene which is "beaucoup fantastic." You may remember Run River (1963) which was about another scuffed spirit like Maria whose dissolution was as complete. But even though you have every reason to suspect that this is an ephemeral form of survival kitsch under its sophisticated maquillage, you won't be impervious.
None NonePub Date: July 13, 1970
ISBN: 0374529949
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1970
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