.AyaRoots’s new novel is a thoroughly original and emotionally rich examination of love, grief and inheritance
Darwin leaves his home in the country and hitches a ride to Port Angeles to start work as a gravedigger at the Fidelis Cemetery. His mother, a devout Rastafarian who has taught him to keep a distance from death, is appalled at his choice of job: “Not in no dead yard and not in that dead city.” But in the absence of other opportunities, Darwin is forced to turn his back on her and take his chances in a place that can reputedly “swallow a man whole”.
Meanwhile, on her family’s estate in Morne Marie, Yejide waits for Petronella, her ailing mother, to gasp her last breath. When she dies, Yejide inherits a mysterious legacy that has been passed down through generations of St Bernard women—the ability to anticipate death and commune with spirits. “I feel the dead calling,” she later says, “and I see death coming before it reach.”
Darwin meets Yejide when she turns up at Fidelis to make burial arrangements for her mother. They sense a special connection and an intimate relationship blossoms. But privately each is plagued by a pressing individual concern. Darwin discovers that his colleagues at the cemetery are embroiled in shady business and that his life is in danger. Yejide is visited by Petronella’s restless ghost, which urges her to escape her fate and make her own life: “Take your man, take yourself and run.
Several recent novels have included memorable scenes in graveyards, among them “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arundhati Roy and George Saunders’s sublime, Booker-prizewinning “Lincoln in the Bardo”. As in those books, the “dead yard” in “When We Were Birds” is full of life. Ms Lloyd Banwo ensures that the scenes it hosts are packed with drama, colour and tension, particularly in her gripping finale.
In other hands, the flights of fancy in Yejide’s story might have clashed with the grounded realism of Darwin’s. Here they blend into a heady mix. The rhythms of Ms Lloyd Banwo’s narrative voice help keep the reader rapt. Like the corbeaux—vultures which, in the author’s invented mythology, escort dead souls to the afterlife—her novel takes flight and soars.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Love Island's Joe Garratt reveals heavenly new back tattooLove Island 2019 star Joe Garratt unveils new back tattoo on Instagram and talks about his serious relationship with God. Read more at heat.
Read more »
Sex, Love and Desire: Inside Climax Books’ Valentine’s Day TakeoverOn Valentine’s Day, Isabella Burley talks us through some of the most heart-racing books and ephemera available at her online bookshop – from works by Nan Goldin and Nobuyoshi Araki to Sofia Coppola and Deana Lawson
Read more »
Two couples who were engaged on Love Is Blind season 2 were cut by NetflixIt was 'ultimately one of the best things I’ve ever done', one of them said.
Read more »
Loved Hitchcock’s Psycho? Well, you’ll love this new psychological thriller starring Tara ReidSheila is set to be the modern-day Psycho, so naturally we’re excited and scared in equal measure.
Read more »
Much as we love the NHS, we can no longer ignore the ethnic inequalities that beset it | David OlusogaA new report shows that the health service, like other institutions, has a deep-seated problem, a blight that Covid has made harder to ignore
Read more »