Tag: Read

Book Review: Hold by Michael Donkor

whatcathyreadnext

HoldAbout the Book

‘You have to imagine. That’s how I told myself.’
‘Imagine what?’
‘Imagine that you are the kind of girl that can cope with it, even if you are not.’

Belinda knows how to follow the rules. She has learnt the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she came to Kumasi to be a housegirl.  Mary is still learning the rules. Eleven years old and irrepressible, the young housegirl-in-training is the little sister Belinda never had.

Amma has had enough of the rules. A straight-A pupil at her exclusive South-London school, she has always been the pride of her Ghanaian parents. Until now. Watching their once-confident teenager grow sullen and wayward, they decide that sensible Belinda might be just the shining example Amma needs.

So Belinda is summoned from Ghana to London, to befriend a troubled girl who shows no desire for her friendship. She encounters a city as bewildering as it is exciting, and as she tries to impose order on her unsettling new world, Belinda’s phonecalls back home to Mary become a lifeline.  As the Brixton summer turns to autumn, Belinda and Amma are surprised to discover the beginnings of an unexpected kinship. But when the cracks in their defences open up, the secrets they have both been holding tight to threaten to seep out…

Format: Audiobook, hardcover, ebook (320 pp.)    Publisher: 4th Estate Books
Published: 12th July 2018                                             Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Publisher | Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Book Depository  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Hold on Goodreads

My Review

The prologue opens at the funeral of an unidentified person, lodging a question in the back of the reader’s mind as the events of earlier that year (2002) unfold in the rest of the book.

Belinda and Mary are housegirls in the home of a wealthy Ghanaians couple who, following custom, the girls refer to as ‘Aunty’ and ‘Uncle’.  (Personally, I would have liked more background about the role and employment/legal status of housegirls in Ghanaian society to help me understand better the relationship.)   Belinda and Mary indulge in gentle, good-humoured bickering as they prepare and serve food to their exacting ‘Aunty’ and ‘Uncle’ alongside other daily household duties such as cleaning, laundry and shopping.  Mary, in particular, has a quirky sense of humour and an optimistic outlook on life while Belinda, a few years Mary’s senior, is conscious of her role as advisor and guide.

Soon, the two girls are separated when Belinda is sent to London to befriend Amma, the daughter of another rich Ghanaian couple, Mrs and Mrs Otuo.  Belinda’s arrival into the confusion of the airport is conveyed in an impressionistic way. ‘A gentle voice came down in a different language.  Then another.  And then another. […] Strip lighting overhead, black arrows on yellow, corridors with moving floors.  […] Queuing.  Strip lighting overhead, black arrows on yellow, corridors with moving floors.  […] The beeping.  The thing to do next: reach the gathering at the tracks that went in a big loop.  Stooped older women stood behind concerned men.  Bored toddlers harassed teddies’ limbs. Lots of tutting at watches, followed by sighing when suitcases came through the lazy mouth.’  Admit it; you’re there with Belinda at the purgatory that is Baggage Reclaim.

On the journey to her new home, Belinda wonders at the unfamiliar sights of London. ‘…London was one big black road with cars.  The motorway gradually thinned out into smaller roads, where there were stores selling rows of plastic bodies – some naked, some clothed – frozen in the middle of dances.’ 

The author takes the reader through the trajectory of the two girls’ relationship from Amma’s initial suspicion of Belinda’s motives, expressed through a sullen refusal to communicate – ‘…the idea of a visitor itched at her.  No privacy.  Someone watching, asking questions.  Someone else to think about.’ – to Belinda’s gradual breaking down of the emotional barriers Amma has erected, guided by Mary’s sage advice in their periodic funny, chatty phone calls.  ‘My sister, if one is a quiet, you have to find clever tricks for to stop them being as that.  Sneak into her to make her chat properly.’

In fact, soon the roles seem to be reversed as Amma becomes a support to Belinda as she struggles to cope with inner demons of her own.  These promising developments are swiftly halted when a revelation by Amma conflicts with everything Belinda has been taught about right and wrong.   Soon after, a tragic event sees Belinda return to Ghana and in the final section of the book the story picks up the narrative from the prologue.

The book is liberally sprinkled with Ghanaian dialect words that had me making frequent use of the glossary.  Conversations are rendered in a distinctive style that I’m aware some reviewers of West African heritage have criticised as inauthentic.  I’m in no position to judge but I would say that, authentic or not, it did give me a clear sense that I was reading about characters whose background and ethnicity is different to my own.  On that subject, I did enjoy learning about Ghanaian culture: clothing, hairstyles, social customs, entertainment, commerce and food.

Hold is a character-driven story about female friendship, exploring your own identity – cultural, sexual, social – and finding a direction in life.  I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, 4th Estate, and NetGalley, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In three words: Absorbing, insightful, emotional

Try something similar…Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah (read my review here)

About the Author

Michael Donkor was born in London, to Ghanaian parents. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and now teaches English Literature to secondary school students. Many of the issues in Hold are close to his heart, and his writing won him a place on the Writers’ Centre Norwich Inspires Scheme in 2014, where he received a year’s mentoring from Daniel Hahn.

Connect with Michael

Website  ǀ   Twitter  ǀ Goodreads

Fact in Fiction Friday: 5 Fascinating Facts From My Reading Week

whatcathyreadnext6 Comments

 

Fact in FictionFor me, reading is chiefly entertainment but it can also be an education – new words, events in history, myths that turns out to be reality and vice versa. Here are just a few of the things I learned from the books I’ve read this week. Click on the title of the book to read my review or the book description on Goodreads.

The Road to NewgateA frequent meeting place in the seventeenth century London depicted in Kate Braithwaite’s historical novel, The Road to Newgate, is the coffee house.   In the book they act as gentlemen’s meeting place, news distribution point and hotbed of gossip and, at times, of dangerous intrigue.  As a keen cappuccino drinker who’s visited a few coffee shops in her time, I was intrigued to find out more about the history of the coffee house. Luckily Kate has written an article about this very subject (link below).  I learned that in 1675, worried that coffee shops were hotbeds of plot and sedition against his rule, Charles II issued A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses, although it seems to have had little effect because by the end of the 17th century there were over 1000 coffee houses.

Source: English History Authors Blog 

Song Cover ImageIn Song by Michelle Jana Chan, set in what is now Guyana, the eponymous hero is enticed by talk of men who have made it rich by mining gold and diamonds along the banks of the river.  Such men are referred to in the book as ‘pork-knockers’ and of course that immediately sparked my interest – not in gold mining – but in finding out more about the term.    As is often the case with terms such as this, its derivation is disputed although it is thought to refer to the miners’ diet of pickled wild pig commonly eaten at the end of the day.  What is not disputed is that the term was applied specifically to freelance Guyanese prospectors who mined for diamonds and gold in the alluvial plains of the Guyanese interior.

Source: Wikipedia

The Lost Letters of William WoolfIn The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen, William works as one of a team of ‘letter detectives’ trying to reunite undelivered letters and parcels with their intended recipients. In an article in the Mirror newspaper (link below), reporter Steve Myall went behind the scenes of its real-life counterpart, the Royal Mail National Returns Centre in Belfast, finding wedding photographs, jewellery and some more unusual objects amongst the undelivered items.

Source: Mirror

 

Betty Church and the Suffolk VampireIn Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by M. R. C. Kasasian, Inspector Betty Church is posted back to her home town, the fictional sleepy seaside resort of Sackwater on the Suffolk coast, complete with pier that, although rather rundown, will play an important role in the book.   It’s 1939 and, with war recently declared, Betty notices on her travels around Sackwater examples of many of the anti-invasion measures installed by the government in large numbers along the southern and eastern coasts of Britain.     These include: blocking beaches with barbed wire; installing defensive measures on seaside piers; and building obstacles, popularly known as ‘Dragon’s teeth’ – pyramid-shaped concrete blocks designed to counter tanks.

Source: Wikipedia

HoldHold by Michael Donkor transports the reader from Ghana to London and back again through the story of three young women, Belinda, Mary and Amma.   Ghanaian culture is a strong feature of the book and, as someone always interested in references to food in books, a dish mentioned that caught my eye was jollof.  I also recall seeing jollof mentioned in other books set in Africa.    Time to finally find out what it is and how it is made.   Jollof is a rice dish common throughout West Africa.  However, the precise recipe differs from one region to another and it seems there is particular rivalry between Nigerians and Ghanaians about which country has the authentic and best recipe.  I’m not going to intrude into that debate by providing a link to a recipe however, typically, jollof  consists of rice, tomatoes and tomato paste, red palm oil, onions, salt, spices (such as nutmeg, ginger and cumin) and chili peppers (such as Scotch bonnet).  Other ingredients may be added such as vegetables, meat or fish.

Source: Wikipedia