Category: literary fiction

Writing: 5/5 Plot: 3.5/5; Characters: 5/5

New words (for me): Buba is an item of clothing; Gele – a Nigerian head scarf

A stunningly good book — I read it in a single sitting (OK – it was only 118 pages — but I had to halve my usual reading speed in order to fully enjoy the lovely language).

Morayo Da Silva is a strong, vibrant, deliciously interesting character. Almost 75, she lives in a small, book-filled, rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco with an incredible view. A retired professor of literature, she was born in Nigeria and lived around the world before settling in San Francisco. She arranges her books by which characters ought to be talking to each other and often rewrites the endings of well-known stories to allow women characters to survive, stay sane, or accomplish great things!

Her life story unfolds through memories as she roams around San Francisco engaging with friends, strangers, and the city itself. Her current story unfolds simultaneously as a fall interrupts her trajectory and exposes her to new people, places, and dependencies. While most is told through her first person narrative, we often get inserts of third person narrative describing an interaction with Morayo. It works!

There is no simplification or any sense that the author is actively trying to make the work more accessible. There are literary references you may not get ( I looked up several) and references to African cultural items and phrases (again – Google is your friend). I love that this book didn’t dumb anything down for potential readers. Similarly, you won’t find any political correctness in the pages — the story is as multi-cultural as you can get, but Morayo’s opinions are her own and she speaks them beautifully.

The writing is spectacular — it’s a short book but I took it slowly so I could appreciate every line. “A straciatella sky” stops Morayo from worrying about something; Lagos is the “land of constant sunshine and daily theatre”; and her home in Jos, unfortunately a target for Boko Haram, is “ … the place where people said “sorry” whenever someone tripped or fell or grazed themselves because that was the linguistic mirror of a culture based on empathy …”.

I picked this book up at last year’s Berkeley Book Festival after seeing the author on an African author panel. She was an intriguing speaker as well as writer. Wish I had started it sooner. Must get to work on that backlog!

Olivia Birch is a serious, dedicated, doctor coming home from a stint treating victims of the terrible Haag virus in Liberia. Subject to a seven day quarantine on reentry to Britain, she and her family will be holed up in her mother’s aging family estate for seven days over Christmas.

The quarantine participants include Olivia, father Andrew (one-time Lebanon war correspondent turned snarky restaurant columnist); high-born mother Emma (who discovers a cancerous lump but doesn’t want to spoil Christmas); party girl Phoebe (the sister who has just become engaged to a man nobody else cares for); and lastly Jesse – Andrew’s surprise offspring from a one night stand in Lebanon.  Jesse serves as a kind of Greek Chorus looking in from the outside and moving the plot along with subconsciously deft manipulations.

Each chapter of the book covers a single day; each section within the chapter is a timestamped story told from one of the five characters perspectives during that day evolving the plot.  And what a plot! Ridiculous coincidences abound but serve only to tighten the strings that stitch the players together and are therefore somehow completely believable.

The book is simultaneously serious and funny as we watch a family that has become stale and distant in its regular interactions rediscover the importance of family and what is important to each of them personally.  Artfully done and genuinely fun to read!