Girl, Women, Other

Bernadine Evaristo

 This book contains multiple storylines spoken by multiple voices, mostly women, black and British. As such, it is hard to review the individual stories of such a vast cast of characters, suffice to say they are all, without exception, engaging and together describe a diversity of experiences in the lives of modern black women.

The writing style is unusual. The conventions around paragraphing are regularly tossed aside, in favour of lines of incomplete sentences which, to me at least, succeed in carrying the prosodic elements of speech. Each character tells their story in first person, using a conversation style, rendering this approach both suitable and richly authentic.

There are college students, directors of feminist theatre, a banking executive, an elderly farm owner, a schoolteacher, a shop worker. Women are straight, gay, trans. Some have been born in Britain, others remember their arrival and not so great welcome as they tried to make a life in their adopted land. There is the tragedy of forced adoption and the heartache of discovering an ancestor involved in the slave trade. The recent past, including events such as the Brixton riots and the radical changes brought about during the Thatcher years, will particularly engage those of us who remember those times.

And, in amongst the horror of race discrimination, sex discrimination, poverty, inequality these women shine. Evaristo celebrates them all in their brave, messy, complicated glory.

4 stars