fiction – BG's Reads

December 13, 2023

Searching For Happy by Venus Knight

Searching For Happy by Venus Knight is the author’s debut novel. This would be a great gift for someone or yourself for the holidays. It was simply a wonderful page-turner. Ms. Knight is Brooklyn, NY based and is a childhood friend of my sister. This talented writer has been writing short stories and poems for years, so of course, I had to get a copy and give it a read. It deals with the everyday struggles of a young woman, her mental instability, the causes, her crushing, emotionally and physically paralyzing symptoms and the brave steps she takes to find peace and help herself. And it was great reading a realistic book that takes place in Brooklyn, from an author that knows – Brooklyn!

The novel opens with a prologue called Mr. Charlie. A nice man, a veteran, married, living an ordinary, routine life, witnesses something he decides he has to make right. Mr. Charlie murders his coworker. Ok, so it starts off with a bang. Now as a reader, when I finish reading a prologue, it leaves me wondering about the story that follows, how the event fits into the rest of the plot. Right? So definitely, approaching chapter one, you’ll want to keep reading.

The main character, Happy Williams, a high school teacher, who is not doing well mentally, struggles to get through her daily routine. She lacks the drive to get out of bed in the morning, has panic attacks and self-worth issues. Having an abusive adoptive mother, in addition to being in a relationship with a married man, isn’t a help to Happy’s well-being. Happy knows that she isn’t alright. She knows she could be in a better place mentally. But how can she get there?

She doesn’t know the exact steps to take, but she follows her instincts, step by step. First a road trip to connect with her family, possibly to find answers about her past. And through this journey, things begin to unravel and fall into place for her. Throughout Happy’s trials and experiences, the author through her storytelling delves into what a person may experience with mental illness. This was woven into the story with humor and thoughtfulness. While reading, you are literally laughing out loud at some points and tearing up at others.

And oh, the prologue. It has the novel kicking off with a great exciting start and we know it is linked to the story in some way – but how? It begins to unfold with matching names, family history and revealed secrets. So, while you are enjoying and being moved by Happy’s journey, you have to pay attention as the answers unfold – I enjoyed that and it was well done. It all comes together, giving the reader closure. I’m not giving details on purpose, because I don’t want to spoil the read for you!

This book was just wonderfully written. It was funny, moving, relatable, and a page-turner. It’s not just the story that’s good – it’s just a nice literary ride! The language, the poetry – brilliantly done! Searching For Happy is a great debut from this author! Venus Knight definitely should write many more novels – can’t wait to read her next one!! Congratulations Venus!

October 31, 2022

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Halloween month – graveyards, the dead, the unexplained. The title When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, takes place on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, the locations and places within the novel are fiction, however. The author is from Trinidad and Tobago – it’s her first novel. I was looking forward to reading this one, since my family is from Trinidad.

This mystical novel opens as an elder, Catherine, tells her granddaughter, Yejide, how the forest changed during a war with animals and man, with parrots changing to the Corbeaux – flesh-eating birds, to balance the living and the dead.

Darwin, a young man from a village in the country, travels to the city of Port Angeles, for the first time to find work at the island’s government office. He is assigned to a cemetery as a gravedigger. This type of work goes against his Rastafarian upbringing of not dealing with the dead, but he desperately needs the work to help his ailing mother, even though she rather he did not leave his village to do this kind of work. She is afraid he will end up like his father, who years ago went to the city to work and, without a word, never returned.

The author alternates chapters between Yejide and Darwin, describing their childhoods, their relationships with their mothers. Both Yejide’s grandmother and mother have passed. Her grandmother, Catherine, passed when she was a child and she was never close to her mother. Her mother seems very angry and resistant to her place in life. It’s her mother, however, who tells Yejide of their relationship to the dead, which is the opposite of Darwin’s beliefs. Her mother tells her that the living must take care of the dead, so they can be at peace and in turn, the dead take care of the living.

After her mother dies, the gift of seeing and communicating with the dead, that has been shared by generations of women in her family, is passed on to Yejide, who like her mother, is resistant to receiving this gift. She can see people’s light or energy; she can see death. As she receives this gift, she travels to a cemetery and sees a young man alone in this cemetery and he sees her.

Darwin struggles with working in the graveyard among so many dead. His first grave digging assignment is difficult, emotionally and spiritually, taking something from his spirit. He feels he is betraying his beliefs. He also thinks he’s seeing things as well that aren’t real, but he’s not sure – a young woman at the gates one evening, a Rasta man walking through the grounds and also fresh graves that his crew did not dig.

Yejide travels to Darwin’s cemetery to make arrangements to bury her mother. Darwin is summoned to escort her to her family’s plot – they recognize each other immediately and feel a connection. He worries about getting involved with her, while having questions about her and also about the mysterious events happening at the cemetery.

Darwin soon finds out about the fresh-looking graves in the cemetery – bodies are delivered to the cemetery at night for his crew to bury and they are also grave robbers. As Darwin is pulled into this scheme, he gets in trouble with his crew of gravediggers, who will have no problem getting rid of a young guy from the country that they believe no one will miss.

Darwin and Yejide find closure and understanding of their family’s pasts as they find a path toward each other. The language of the novel, the storytelling, which was always oral in my family at least, is familiar and refreshing to read in book form. The ending literally choked my up, so, please give When We Were Birds a read. I’m looking forward to see what the author, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, comes up with next! And for the Trini’s reading this post – please give this novel a read and let me know what you think!!

Side comment, I had to publish from my phone today, due to a wifi outage at home. So, couldn’t do all the optics I wanted.

July 30, 2022

Two titles found at Book Warehouse

I found these titles while browsing in a Book Warehouse outlet in Atlanta, GA recently. I mean, you can buy 2-3 books for under ten dollars – nice! I bought three titles, and below are two.

In Things We Lost In The Fire, Argentinian author, Mariana Enriquez, uses her country’s history of violence and political conflict, mixed with the supernatural, to speak of remnants and consequences of murder and brutality in her short stories.

In these short stories, the presence of the police and soldiers contribute to the uneasiness and the threat of violence. Their cruelties are an implied consequence of the strange, supernatural happenings – the ghosts or silent apparitions in the forests, old jails, homes and graveyards in these stories.

The first story, The Dirty Kid, involves the relationship between an upper-class graphic designer and a homeless boy. The graphic designer, a young woman, is the narrator and lives in an old stone house in a formally aristocratic neighborhood that is now a poor, run down, dangerous place, with suspicion and rumors of ‘witch-narcos’ who perform deadly rites in order to ask for protection. People disappear and are found disfigured, partially decapitated on the streets.

The narrator befriends this homeless child when he comes to her door because he is hungry. Later, when a murdered beheaded boy is found in the neighborhood, she is convinced it is this child. She feels guilty that she didn’t do more to help the hungry boy. Guilt-ridden and tormented by nightmares, she confronts the boy’s pregnant mother and demands to know what happened to the child. The mother snarls that she gave the child to a witch-narcos and has promised her unborn child as well. The narrator is shaken and upset by this, but can still return to the safety and sanctuary of her home. There is a clear line between what goes on in the street and within the narrator’s upper-class home and life.

The author gives vivid descriptions and history of Argentinian and Buenos Aires neighborhoods. In the fourth story titled Adela’s House, a young girl is jealous of her older brother’s relationship with his friend Adela, their neighbor. Adela’s parents are wealthy, she has the best toys, the best parties, but she also has a birth defect – one missing arm. Adele and the young girl’s brother are a bit older and are allowed watch horror movies, while she can’t. Adela and the brother become obsessed with an abandoned house in the neighborhood that has a sketchy history. They don’t include the young girl in their fanciful games until they decide to actually enter this house.

As they enter, the house is alive with lighting and furnishings. Here the story takes a bad turn. The house begins to buzz and they see shelves filled with teeth and fingernails. They hear Adela’s screams in the dark, but can’t find her. They never see her again. Now, the question is why did the house draw in and take Adela and not her friends? Was it because she was different and was somehow vulnerable?

There are ten other short stories within this title, Things We Lost In The Fire, by the author Mariana Enriquez. Her stories go from the normal-everyday to ghost-haunting terror to self-inflicted violence of protest and to the unexplained. Her characters range from husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, and friends who are cast in these situations. These stories do what a good story is supposed to do – keep you engaged, not knowing what to expect, while asking questions afterward. Hope you check it out.

This second title is published by Hogarth’s Shakespeare project, Shakespeare’s works retold by talented, best-selling authors of today, a series of seven novels. This is book five in the series – the author of Girl With A Pearl Earing, Tracey Cavalier, writes New Boy, a twist on Shakespeare’s Othello, which takes place in a Washington D.C, 1970’s all-white elementary school. The new boy, a diplomat’s son from Nigeria, is the school’s only black student – hence the drama is set. It takes place over the course of one school day, in five parts – before school, morning recess, lunch, afternoon recess, and after school.

Sixth graders Osei Kokote, called O, and Daniella Benedetti, called Dee, meet on the playground before school. Dee is assigned to look after O for the day and show him around school. They feel a connection and become close, to the alarm and disgust of some of the teachers and most of the students, especially Ian, a student and manipulating bully.

Ian doesn’t like the shift in balance that has taken place since O has arrived at school. Before O, everyone knew their place, within certain groups with followers and leaders. O is confident and displays on the playground that he has skills – he can stand alone and not follow anyone. Even though O was different, the students respected him. Ian decides to take action – he will drive O and Dee apart.

This novel, New Boy, by the author, Tracey Chavalier, is well paced, and it’s not clear until the very last page if this will be a true tragedy of O. These are sixth graders after all, but the author brings love, friendship, loyalty, racism, jealousy and betrayal effectively to the playground and classroom of this elementary school. Really good read. I will be checking out other books in this Shakespeare project series, hope you will too.