Tag: literary fiction

Book Review: Brother by David Chariandy

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BrotherAbout the Book

Michael and Francis are the bright, ambitious sons of Trinidadian immigrants. Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of houses and towers in the disparaged outskirts of a sprawling city, the brothers battle against the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them on a daily basis.  While Francis dreams of a future in music, Michael’s dreams are of Aisha, the smartest girl in their school, whose eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. But the bright hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic event.

Beautifully written and extraordinarily powerful, Brother is a novel of deep humanity which provides a profound insight into love, family, opportunity and grief.

Format: ebook, hardcover (192 pp.)        Publisher:  Bloomsbury Publishing
Published in the UK: 8th March 2018      Genre: Literary Fiction

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Brother on Goodreads

 

My Review

Brother is an emotional read, not least because, from the outset, the reader has a sense of inevitability that promising lives will be unfulfilled or end tragically.  Danger seems always close at hand in the area where the family live. ‘Always, there were stories on TV and in the papers of gangs, killings in bad neighbourhoods, predators roaming close.’    The relationship between the two brothers is beautifully rendered, with Francis acting as protector and guide to his younger brother.  There is also a strong sense of the bonds of loyalty to your family, your friends – your ‘group’, as it were.  Ultimately the latter will lead to tragedy.

The book evokes a believable picture of the immigrant experience in Canada (and I suspect many other places).  It’s a world of poor housing and low level, insecure jobs where multiple jobs may be needed to make ends meet.   However, there is comfort to be found in cultural reminders (food, music, etc.) and in community support in times of crisis.  ‘To this very day, trays of food will sometimes appear at our front door.  A pilau with okra, a stew chicken unmistakably Caribbean.’

Like many others, Michael’s and Francis’s mother dreams of a better future for her children, fighting prejudice, social inequality and low expectations.  ‘All around us in the Park were mothers who had journeyed far beyond what they knew, who took day courses and worked nights, who dreamed of raising children who might just have a little more than they did, children who might reward sacrifice and redeem a past….Fears were banished by the scents from simmering pots, denigration countered by a freshly laundered tablecloth.  History beaten back by the provision of clothes and yearly school supplies.  “Examples” were raised.’

Brother – sadly – tells a story that is probably being played out in many of our communities right now.   It’s a relatively short book but one that packs an emotional punch.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Bloomsbury, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Gritty, insightful, compelling

Try something similar…Cuz by Danielle Allen (click here to read my review)

David ChariandyAbout the Author

David Chariandy is a Canadian writer and one of the co-founders of Commodore Books.

His debut novel Soucouyant was nominated for ten literary prizes and awards, including the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (longlisted), the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize (longlisted), the 2007 Governor General’s Award for Fiction (finalist), the 2007 ForeWord Book of the Year Award for literary fiction from an independent press (“gold” winner), the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book of Canada and the Caribbean (shortlisted), the 2008 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize of the British Columbia Book Prizes (shortlisted), the 2008 City of Toronto Book Award (shortlisted), the 2008 “One Book, One Vancouver” of the Vancouver Public Library (shortlisted), the 2008 Relit Award for best novel from a Canadian independent press (shortlisted), and the 2007 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award (shortlisted).

Chariandy has a MA from Carleton and a PhD from York University. He lives in Vancouver and teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University.

Connect with David

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Throwback Thursday: The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.  If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

Today I’m revisiting a book that I reviewed in the early days of my blog: the evocative and moving, The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak, published in January 2017.  (This was in the days when my reviews were rather shorter than they are now.  Not sure if this is good or bad…)

signalAbout the Book

In a small town in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains, Hannah and her son Bo mourn the loss of the family patriarch, Jozef Vinich. They were three generations under one roof. Three generations, but only one branch of a scraggy tree; they are a war-haunted family in a war-torn century. Having survived the trenches of World War I as an Austro-Hungarian conscript, Vinich journeyed to America and built a life for his family. His daughter married the Hungarian-born Bexhet Konar, who enlisted to fight with the Americans in the Second World War but brought disgrace on the family when he was imprisoned for desertion. He returned home to Pennsylvania a hollow man, only to be killed in a hunting accident on the family’s land. Finally, in 1971, Hannah’s prodigal younger son, Sam, was reported MIA in Vietnam.

And so there is only Bo, a quiet man full of conviction, a proud work ethic, and a firstborn’s sense of duty. He is left to grieve but also to hope for reunion, to create a new life, to embrace the land and work its soil through the seasons. The Signal Flame is a stirring novel about generations of men and women and the events that define them, brothers who take different paths, the old European values yielding to new world ways, and the convalescence of memory and war.

Format: Hardcover, ebook, paperback (272 pp.)   Publisher: Scribner
Published: 24th January 2017              Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

 

Find The Signal Flame on Goodreads

My Review

Covering a period of a few months, we learn, mainly from the point of view of Bo, something of the tragic history of the family and the impact of his brother’s absence on the family and others. There is some gorgeous writing: “The air smelled of the same candle smoke and slight perfume of frankincense and gardenia that she remembered, and it still sounded even in its silence like every voice uttered was a whisper and that whisper would echo forever if she just sat and listened long enough.”

The book is incredibly sad in parts as tragedies – natural and manmade – come one after another; the toll of grief on some of the characters is sympathetically conveyed: “No, she had come to believe that the only thing one could be certain of was loss. The loss of others as one lived on. Loss as the last thing one left behind.”

What prevents the book becoming too overwhelmingly depressing is the theme of reconciliation.   There are some particularly moving and touching scenes between characters in which longstanding differences are set aside which, I’m not ashamed to say, moved me to tears.   I loved the descriptions of the routine of daily domestic tasks which never become mundane but gave a sense of the rhythm of life in a small, isolated community. The author explores ideas of duty, obligation and continuity through Bo’s sense of connection to the land acquired by and handed down by his grandfather and there is a sense of a real regard for skill and craftsmanship.

The one slight negative is that the absence of speech marks sometimes made it difficult to distinguish conversation between characters from internal monologue.  I received an advance review copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Scribner, in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Evocative, moving, haunting

Try something similar: The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey (click here to read my review)

Andrew KrivakAbout the Author

Andrew Krivak is the author of The Sojourn, a novel set during WWI; A Long Retreat: In Search of a Religious Life, a memoir about his eight years in the Jesuit Order; and the editor of The Letters of William Carlos Williams to Edgar Irving Williams, 1902-1912. The grandson of Slovak immigrants, he grew up in Pennsylvania, has lived in London, and has taught at Harvard, Boston College, and the College of the Holy Cross. Krivak currently lives with his wife and three children in Massachusetts.

Connect with Andrew

Website ǀ  Goodreads