Big, busy novel has much to say
Gallery Cafe Book Group
THERE was an interesting response to the novel Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. Two people couldn’t get beyond the first two chapters, citing dislike of style, the plethora of characters and repeating story lines that have already been explored in other literature.
Interestingly, Evaristo, when being interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh Book Festival, said readers’ reaction to the novel would depend on the demographics of their reading of minority and black novelists.
The novel explores the lives of 12 black women, of different backgrounds and cultural heritage, who have been marginalised in the UK. Each chapter starts with a West African Adinkra drawing symbolising a salient quality of that section’s protagonist.
The novel is a big, busy one with a large root system. The characters start to arrive (Amma, Yazz, Dominique, Carole, Bummi and La Tisha) and they keep arriving (Shirley, Winsome, Penelope, Megan/morgan, Hattie and Grace).
The primary character is Amma, a black lesbian playwright, now in her 50s, whose new play is now being produced at the National Theatre in London.
Success has taken her out of range of some of her old anxieties about life, and has put her in range of awkward new ones.
This slice of the story is semiautobiographical: Evaristo cofounded the Theatre Of Black Women in the early 1980s.
Amma’s story is followed by 11 others that drift back and forth in time. Carole goes to Oxford and becomes an investment banker.
Another is Hattie, who is 93 and lives on her farm in northern England. Others are young and live in contemporary London.
Interspersed within the individual stories are many other characters, women and men, who provide background to the stories.
One group member thought the skill of the writing lay in how it was written as much as what and why it was written.
The novel is written in a hybrid form that falls somewhere between prose and poetry, with very little punctuation.
The interlinking of characters throughout make this book a novel, rather than a collection of small stories. Many of the characters are close friends, relatives or lovers, while others simply visit the same theatre on the same night, or argue with each other on Twitter. Everyone thought that Evaristo had cleverly encapsulated her characters in the bite-sized sections.
Some of the hardships experienced by the black women, in the timeframe, are the same as many white women.
The group didn’t find much humour in the book, but there are a few one-liners from the white, racist Penelope, who, after receiving her DNA results, is shocked to find she is 13% African.
When she takes a taxi in Northern England she finds her driver is African and tips him well “considering he’s practically a sixth cousin or something”.
The character the group found most interesting was non-binary Megan/morgan.
The novel ends with a message of hope for the future: “this is about being together”.
There were many other aspects of the novel we could have discussed but time ran out. The next book for discussion is The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Dare.