Rotten setting, sublime novel
Petina Gappah’s latest leaves Kelly Ana Morey a little bit broken-hearted.
Little did I know what a treat I had in store when I cracked the spine of
Rotten Row, by Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah, at 10am on a Friday. Seven hours later I reached the last page and realised that there was no more left and I was genuinely a little bit broken-hearted. Rotten Row is just that good.
Gappah has form, she’s a winner of prizes, and last year was a featured writer at the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival. This book, her third, which is interlocking short stories, more than lives up to her impressive press cuttings.
Rotten Row, the arterial road that runs through Harare connecting it to outlying areas and the location of several key institutions including the Criminal Division of the Harare Magistrate’s Court, serves as the backdrop for the stories.
Is it political? You bet it is. But in a really good way. Although the stories deal with much of what has gone wrong and right with Zimbabwe, both socially and politically from a whole lot of viewpoints, so light is Gappah’s touch that it never feels didactic or even grim.
Playing out the various takes on what Zimbabwe is today and what has made it like this, through a huge cast of sometimes recurring characters, allows the stories to be individual and human. Any sense of outrage has to come from the reader, Gappah is not going to tell you how to think, she would much rather show you.
Without a doubt, there are many moments of violence in the collection: the first two stories for example are, respectively, the reminiscences of a government hangman, and a misunderstanding that leads to the mob-violence death of a Kombi hawker for the alleged theft of a mobile phone.
However, moments like these are only part of the rich tapestry that Gappah has created. Rotten Row is also filled with people living and loving, and hating and thieving, and believing, in addition to being a vibrant portrait of Harare and its recent history.
And sometimes, albeit in a very black way, it’s genuinely really funny, generally right before she stabs you in the heart with a comparatively tiny in the wider sense, individual human tragedy.
This is a big canvas Gappah’s created. It’s intricately plotted, has a huge cast of characters, and is played against a location and set of circumstances that will be foreign to much of Rotten Row‘s readership, but she not only pulls it off, she owns it.
The plotting never feels anything but effortless.
Her characters, who sometimes recur in greater or lesser roles in other stories, are so indelible you recognise them immediately, even through name changes.
Even her non-speaking cameos are unforgettable. Then, if all that wasn’t enough of a challenge, she includes Shona dialogue with embedded translations, which she also handles with mastery.
Sad, funny, shocking, unapologetic, and celebratory, Rotten Row is an extraordinary portrait of a country that has been in crisis for longer than any of its characters can remember.