Behind a mother’s despair
Yvvette Edwards’ second novel is a worthy follow-up to her remarkable debut, finds Sue Green.
Yvvette Edwards’ remarkable 2011 debut novel A Cupboard Full of Coats received a string of accolades including longlisting for the Man Booker Prize, and shortlisting for the Commonwealth Book Prize.
Five years on this second novel, again set in London’s East End Caribbean immigrant community, and again centred on family relationships, reinforces her accomplishment.
Edwards, herself an East Londoner of Caribbean descent, has a deceptively straightforward and stripped-back style yet effectively conveys subtleties of character and emotional depth.
Marcia Williams is the mother – a mother whose only child, 16-year-old Ryan, has been stabbed to death for no apparent reason.
‘‘Why?’’ is top of her list of many questions as she readies herself for day one of the Old Bailey trial of the 17-year-old charged with his murder.
She dons a wig over the remnants of her hair – its loss just one of so many.
‘‘I wish I had the courage to stand before the court without it, to stand before my son’s killer so he could see for himself the effects of his deed that took but a moment, no more than a few minutes, to strip me clean of not just my only child, but everything else I had and presumed was mine for keeps.’’
Marcia’s husband, Lloydie, will not attend the trial, won’t talk about what happened, and their 18-year marriage is cracking under the weight of their grief.
The Mother, narrated by 39-year-old Marcia, was inspired by Edwards’ own questions in the face of increasing knife crime among young people in London. Her stepson was stabbed randomly after an outing with friends, changing her perspective on events to which, she has told interviewers, it is dangerously easy to become desensitised.
Edwards skilfully interweaves her thoughtful and nuanced portrait of this strained marriage and the twin burdens of grief and guilt with the baldly factual evidence at the trial of young Tyson Manly.
But as Marcia keeps her daily vigil in the public gallery, supported by her family liaison officer Nipa and her sister Lorna, she begins to understand the complexities here, the dysfunctional families and social and economic circumstances that created this young murderer and the young woman who is lying for him.
Sweetie Nelson, Ryan’s first girlfriend – a young woman deemed totally unsuitable by Marcia – has given his killer a false alibi. But Sweetie, it quickly emerges, was also involved with Tyson Manley and his ‘‘crew’’ – and not by choice.
As their lives are picked apart by skilled barristers, an ugly picture, grounded in a disturbing reality, emerges of young people trapped in a cycle of violence and abuse, poverty and fear, with no hope of escape.