Review of THE LAST NEANDERTHAL by Claire Cameron

3 Stars

This book just didn’t resonate with me. 

There are two parallel stories.  Girl is a Neanderthal, presumably the last one.  Her story focuses on her struggles to survive, especially as the members of her family become fewer and fewer.  Rose is an archaeologist who discovers Girl’s skeleton, along with that of a male homo sapien.  Rose’s goal is to prove that Neanderthals were not inferior in terms of intelligence and physical abilities and that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens mated since modern humans have Neanderthal DNA.

There are similarities between Girl and Rose.  Girl must contend with the power dynamics within her family; Rose must manoeuvre the power dynamics at the archaeological dig and the museum that is providing her funding.  The most obvious commonality is that both women are pregnant.  Obviously, this book is intended as a tale of common humanity, but the similarities seem awkwardly inserted into the narrative.

Girl’s section has passages which I found difficult to accept.  For example, we are told that “When one [member of the family] had a dream, the others saw the same pictures in their heads, whether they remembered in the morning or not” (10).  Also, Girl’s “mind held the memories of all the hunts [her mother] had been on too, and her mother before as well.  And Girl also had the stories that came to her in dreams from the other members of the family” (40).  The Neanderthals are shown to communicate with animals; they have a “truce with the bears” (179) at the annual spring fish run, a “long-standing peace” (175).  Girl is so in tune with nature that she can read messages in leaves:  “Meat that is alive sends pulses of heat into the air.  This comes from the fire inside the chest of a body.  When this warmth hits the air, it moves in patterns around the trees.  It pushes and pulls at the leaves in particular ways. . . . The trees that line the valley take up and exaggerate the movement.  They pass the message down.  If Girl watched and felt the patterns in the leaves, she could read them” (119).  The impression is that the author tried too hard to portray Neanderthals as deserving of our respect.

Rose’s narrative has problems too, the most significant being that Rose is unlikeable.  She is obsessed with work and when she discovers she is pregnant, her main concern is not for her child but for her inability to oversee the dig.  Her focus is on how the pregnancy will affect her career; she expresses no love for the child she is carrying and gives no thought to his/her welfare, not even insuring that he/she will have access to adequate health care.  Often, women must sacrifice their careers to have children but it is difficult to have any sympathy for a woman who is so self-centred.  The reader is to believe Rose is intelligent, but her naivety suggests otherwise.  What woman would promise her partner that she would deliver the baby on a particular weekend (225)?   Is Rose’s ineptitude supposed to emphasize Girl’s intuitive understanding of pregnancy and motherhood? 

This novel was a finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, but I can’t understand why.  The jury described the book as “engrossing” but I didn’t find it compelling.  The novel was also commended for its “great sophistication” but I found it clunky; the author’s attempts to shake up “the classic Neanderthal tropes in science fiction and fantasy” are stiff and mechanical. 

The author had a purpose (which she outlines in the prologue):  to emphasize similarities between modern humans and Neanderthals.  Unfortunately, her theme is not conveyed with the finesse of great fiction. 

Note:  On the same topic, this exhibition might be interesting:  https://www.historymuseum.ca/neanderthal/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pagepost&utm_campaign=cart19+neandertal&utm_content=neandertal&fbclid=IwAR2Ax88lghLsVcA4LqvF2hWph4h_eFatDS6ZzfpNVK2QLcYqiv84HQw45zE

Review of AYESHA AT LAST by Uzma Jalaluddin

3.5 Stars

I was looking for a light read and settled on this novel which I had heard about as a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Though the book does not follow Austen’s plot slavishly, there are certainly many similarities.

The setting is the contemporary South East Asian Muslim community of suburban Toronto.  Elizabeth Bennett is Ayesha Shamsi, a 27-year-old unmarried substitute teacher who yearns to be a poet.  Mr. Darcy is Khalid Mirza, a conservative e-commerce project manager who has agreed to have his mother arrange his marriage:  “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Muslim man must be in want of a wife . . . [though to] his Indian mother, his own inclinations are of secondary importance.”  As expected, the two meet and are attracted to each other, but they repeatedly clash.  The ending, of course, is entirely predictable.

The character of Ayesha is appealing.  Her outspokenness is the trait that gets her into trouble.  Her first encounter with Farzana, Khalid’s mother, is hilarious as Ayesha asks the questions about Khalid that Farzana is asking of Hafsa, Ayesha’s cousin who is being considered as a possible wife for Khalid.  Ayesha shows herself to be the exact opposite of what Farzana wants in a daughter-in-law, someone without “’modern ideas about education and careers . . . [who shows] deference and modesty . . . [and is] quiet and refined . . . [and does not] talk back to her mother-in-law . . . [and spends] her days sewing, cooking and reading the Quran.’”

As in Austen’s classic, the characters change as they learn their flaws.  At first, Ayesha sees Khalid as “a judgmental conformist, content to bow mindlessly to tradition and the expectations of others.”  She calls him a “fundy” – a fundamentalist.  Naturally, she gradually becomes aware of her prejudices and becomes more accepting.  Khalid also learns that he tends to be judgmental and becomes more compassionate and open-minded. 

Many of the characters are rather one-dimensional.  Farzana is the controlling, conniving mother who seems to have no redeeming qualities.  Likewise, Sheila, Khalid’s Muslim-hating boss, is reminiscent of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.  Ayesha’s grandparents, on the other hand, are wise and good.  For instance, her grandfather quotes Shakespeare and her grandmother dispenses advice while giving cooking lessons:  “’A woman plays many roles in her life, and she must learn to accept them as they come.’” 

Actually, there are several people who give advice.  Ayesha’s best friend tells her, “’Sometimes the only way to move forward is to rock the boat.  Otherwise you risk losing everything.’”  Her principal warns her, “’Dreams tend to shatter if you’re carrying other people’s hopes around with you.’”  An imam advises Khalid to understand his motivations because “’Actions are judged by intentions, and everyone will have what they intended.’” 

I did have some issues with the book.  The number of times people ignore questions directly asked of them in conversation is annoying.  People don’t really do that in real life.  Also problematic is Ayesha’s loyalty to her shallow, materialistic, impulsive cousin; to justify this relationship, the author has Ayesha thinking, “The loyalty she felt for Hafsa was instinctive and unflinching and didn’t make a lot of sense.”  Khalid’s physical transformation at the end seems unnecessary.  There are also times when the book drags; I wanted the drama to end. 

Though not perfect, the book is mostly an enjoyable read.  Having Muslim Canadians as the main characters in a classic retelling not only shines a light on the lives of Muslims, as varied as are those of Christians, but also emphasizes the relevance of Jane Austen’s classic novel. 

Review of NAAMAH by Sarah Blake

3 Stars

This novel gives the perspective of Naamah, Noah’s wife, as she and her family live on the ark waiting for the rain to stop and the water to recede.  Noah built the ark but Naamah is the one whose job it seems to be to keep its inhabitants alive so they can reconstruct the world.  She deals with the daily practicalities of life:  feeding, cleaning, exercising, and controlling the animals; she’s “the one who’s always plowing ahead, unfazed by dead animals, broken doors, injured legs, the same food over and over.”  After a problem is solved, Naamah finds herself “still thinking fast, still feeling like she might have to jump to action, save someone, sacrifice something.”

To escape the confines of life on the ark, Naamah goes swimming.  In the water, surreal things happen.  She comes across a world inhabited by the dead where she plays with dead children.  She also meets an angel with whom she has sex.  Naamah also has many dreams in which she communicates with other beings, including God.

It is the many dream sequences that are problematic.  The boundaries between reality and her dream world are blurred so it is difficult to determine if what is being described is real.  I found myself often questioning the purpose of various dreams.  The constant insertion of dreams fractures the narrative and takes away any suspense.  Readers who enjoy lyrical writing will enjoy the dream sequences but I found them more intrusive than revelatory.

This is very much a feminist retelling of the Biblical story.  The novel focuses on the experiences of Naamah and her three daughters-in-law rather than on those of Noah and the three sons.  Naamah, for example, mourns the dead; she finds herself “overwhelmed by her new understanding of the deaths of the people God no longer wanted.”  Repopulating the world becomes the responsibility of the women and “Naamah wonders if God has considered this:  women so distrustful of Him that they might never bear children for the new world.”

Distrustful is probably the best word to describe Naamah’s relationship with God.  It is this relationship which I found most interesting in the novel.  She does not revere Him.  She finds it difficult to trust someone who let innocent children die in the flood; she shares the opinion of a dead woman who says, “’I can’t imagine knowingly going to Him after what He’s done.’”  Naamah, like her daughter-in-law Adata, has no firm belief “that they are ever far from God’s grief.”  Naamah is told that God cannot be judged because He cannot be understood, but she says, “’I judge Him just the same.’” 

Naamah also has doubts about God’s plan.  Before the flood began, she was told by Noah that God “’wants to wipe the earth clean, start fresh.  He’s deemed everything wicked and evil.  He’s seen too much violence.  He thinks He got us wrong.’”  That leads to her main question, “’How does God get something wrong?’”  She wonders why she has been determined to be not wicked and so saved when she feels otherwise.  One night on the ark, fireflies are seen and Japheth, the eldest son, says that God has called into being things that were not, and Naamah replies, “’Yes!  Yes!  Why is it, then, do you think, Japheth, that we should usher all these animals, if he could just do that, on the other side of the flood?’” 

I think the premise of this novel is interesting, but I was not impressed with the execution.  The many surreal scenes detract from the portrayal of a strong woman willing to question and scold God. 

Review of MIRACLE CREEK by Angie Kim

4 Stars

Korean immigrants Pak and Young Yoo own and run Miracle Submarine, a medical device for hyperbaric oxygen therapy which has people breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized chamber.  HBOT is offered as a treatment for a variety of conditions including autism, cerebral palsy, and infertility.  An explosion occurs outside the facility in rural Virginia; two people die and others are injured, including Pak and Mary, the Yoo’s teenaged daughter.  Arson is determined to be the cause of the explosion, and Elizabeth Ward, the mother of one of the victims, an 8-year-old autistic boy, is charged with arson, battery, attempted murder, and murder. 

The book focuses on Elizabeth’s trial a year after the explosion.  As various people testify, the case against Elizabeth is shown to have flaws.  Outside the trial scenes, the perspectives of several people present on the night of the explosion (Pak, Young and Mary Yoo, an injured patient and his wife, the mother of a patient) are given.  Each person is lying about something or withholding information so everyone is morally compromised. 

The book touches on a number of subjects including immigration, parenthood, and caring for special-needs children.  Pak and Young immigrated to the U.S. to ensure Mary a better life and education but family relationships have been strained because of that decision.  Several of the HBOT patients are special-needs children; from the point of view of their mothers, we learn about their struggles and frustrations:  “Having a special-needs child didn’t just change you; it transmuted you, transported you to a parallel world with an altered gravitational axis.”  Certainly, the book examines how much parents will do for their offspring.

Character development is exceptional.  Few characters remain flat.  Each of the characters whose perspective is given emerges as a round character with strengths and flaws.  I found the mothers who are caregivers to special-needs children are portrayed especially realistically; they reveal their love but also their self-pity and resentment.  Because each character is not entirely truthful or forthcoming, the reader will find his/her opinion changing frequently.  One individual will be a prime suspect but then another will emerge. 

A main message is that people have complicated emotions and motives and when they make choices and take action, there may be effects on many.  A person may be found guilty for the crimes but perhaps the actions of many “contributed to the causal chain.”  Young realizes, “But that was the way life worked.  Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together – one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result.  Good things and bad – every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness – resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.”

The novel is a compelling read.  It is a murder mystery, a courtroom thriller, and a family drama.  The reader’s emotions are fully engaged as he/she tries to determine exactly what happened that fateful night.  Besides providing entertainment, the book gives much about life for the reader to ponder. 

Review of BINA by Anakana Schofield (New Release)

4.5 Stars

I loved this novel.  It will not be to everyone’s liking, but I found it a compelling read.

Bina (pronounced Bye-na) is an angry 74-year-old woman who has “had enough.”  From her bed, on discarded envelopes and receipts, she writes her story:  “I was always remarking to myself, but now I’m doing my remarking in a more formal capacity for yourselves, and for after I’m gone, and I am very glad of it.  For it has been a long life of being talked at, often unintelligently, and at this late hour in the departure lounge of life, I am happy to do the full remarking aloud and down onto these papers.” 

Bina tells us about Eddie who inserted himself into her life for a decade during which time “Within these four walls it was persistence, it was never living.”  She calls him an “ordeal creator” who became violent and used her property for criminal activities:  “The man is a lying hoar.  He has lied far and wide and double-eared for 10 years.  He’ll lie til the pyramids are fully eroded and rebuilt in Lego.”  She is overjoyed that he is gone but is ever fearful that he will return. 

Bina introduces us to the Tall Man who recruited her into a group; “What he wanted me to do eventually became a mountain of woe and had me sent inside prison for a week.”  Now she is awaiting trial on serious charges.  Members of the group, whom she calls Crusties, are camped out in her yard:  “They are outside camping with their clipboards, in case the Guards come for me.”

Bina had two friends, Tomás and Phil, but both are gone so she finds herself very much alone.  She has decided to write her story to warn people not to repeat her mistakes; she feels she has “been handed this here undertaking.  To.  Deliver.  These.  Warnings.  I am a practical woman, there’s nothing I like more than to be useful and this here makes me useful.”   In fact, much of what she writes consists of  warnings.  For example, “if you are thinking of opening your hearth or your heart.  Don’t.”  and “I would warn you never to disclose your dark thoughts but to constantly disclose your truthful thoughts, because it’s only the dark ones that follow when the truthful ones are hid.” and “Don’t do the things you’re not supposed to do.  Even if people ask you to do them.  Don’t.”  and “Another warning:  Careful what you think you are hiding, as it’s probably on full view.  Careful not to hide suffering because you are only making more work for the people who have yet to discover it.” and “Sacrifice is a stupid thing that women do.  Don’t do it.  The men don’t notice.”

Bina also writes her conclusions about life based on what she has experienced.  She comments on various topics like ageism (“I’m not a young person so I am used to being ignored”) and media (“It’s a funny thing when the papers write about you or the TV tells about you, but they have not talked to you. . . . They give you a voice based on what they believe your actions are.  They talk about you like they are speculating through binoculars”) and the treatment of women (“They were not giving up because I was a woman and I was grabable”).  She mentions that “There’s nothing quite as confusing as yourself, I concluded.  This is likely why so many of us succumb to absolute confusion, the dementia, in the end.” and “if you tell people the truth they won’t believe you, but tell them lies and they’ll believe all of it.” and “We cannot know every reason a person has for doing a thing.”

There are some wonderful touches of humour: 

“A man though, he could get into your kidneys and irritate them & you in a very special way.  It’s why women are up in the night to go to the toilet as they age.  They are widdling the confused strain of anger gathered up in there all day.  I’ve no explanation as to why men are up piddling all night too, except perhaps it’s God’s subtle way of tormenting them.  He goes straight for the pipe does our Saviour.”

and

“There’s a new fella out there, the lanky looper I call him, with a thin face and a long beard that might have food gone relic inside it.  He has it twisted down to a point and a red elastic band put on it with a bead or three, and he looks surgically demented.  I don’t care what you put on yourself.  I wouldn’t care if you tattooed a droopy spider on your baldhead like a lampshade, but a grown man with three pink beads hanging from his chin is disturbing.”

and

When her lawyer tells her to watch her words because “’You’re going to scupper us all if you keep this up,’” she thinks, “Last I checked there are no double berths for the convicted and their solicitors in any prison in this country.”

Because the style is unconventional, the narrative is fractured.  Bina circles around events without fully explaining herself so it takes a while to understand, for example, what work she actually did with the group.  She says that she is being vague so she doesn’t implicate herself; because of legal reasons, she “cannot articulate without getting in trouble.”  She repeats herself to emphasize her message but also because she is forgetful.  She admits that “My memory isn’t great so you may have to read a few things twice” and bemoans how “A name, a word, a meaning, a person, it’s all unthreading and blowing out the backdoor of my mind.”  She often addresses the reader directly:  “Don’t forget, when you can’t remember, it’ll come back to you.”  Sometimes she speaks about herself in the third person. 

There are sections which read more like poetry than prose: 

                I panicked too much.

                It’s been a lifetime of panic.  Eddie would make you panic.  It’s how he is.

                Sirenic.

                Claxonic.

                Awful.

                Awful.

                Awful.

At times the language reminded of e e cumming’s poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town”:  “This wasn’t unusual heard.  It wasn’t unusual to hear it.  You could not at all it.  You could not at all them.  But you couldn’t eradicate the thought of it.  You couldn’t get at the part of them that had started to feel it or had maybe felt it all their lives.  You wouldn’t even know what someone felt all their lives and whether it was now or then they were feeling it and when was then and how was now?  Maybe they could barely arrive at now because of then.”

This would probably be considered a difficult book.  Early on, Bina actually mentions this: 

                But this hasn’t been a difficult book yet.

                Bina’s not for difficult books.

                Life is full of difficulty, so if she were ever to lie down and take up a book, it couldn’t be a difficult one.

                I’d never read that rubbish, she’d say of this book.

                It would give me bad dreams.

Despite the book’s challenging style, serious subject and often melancholic tone, I highly recommend it. Bina’s voice is one you will not soon forget. 

Note:  I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of DEATH BY DARK WATERS by Jo Allen (New Release)

3 Stars

After a grass fire, the charred body of a pre-teen boy is found in a barn in the Lake District.  Detective Chief Inspector Jude Satterthwaite leads the investigation.  His team includes Detective Sergeant Ashleigh O’Halloran who has just joined the police force in the area.  They soon determine that his death was not accidental.  But who is the boy?  Why was he not reported missing?  As the investigators search for the murderer, they take some wrong turns and another death occurs.  Of course, eventually all secrets are uncovered. 

The mystery is not difficult to solve; in fact, it is rather predictable.  Because there are not that many characters, the suspect pool is small.  And the clues tend to be too obvious.  The only real mystery is the motive and exactly how the murderer carried out the crimes. 

What detracts from the case is Jude and Ashleigh’s personal lives.  Both are recovering from relationships that ended recently, but they have not moved on.  As a result, they spend a lot of time thinking about their previous partners.  As expected, there is an immediate attraction between Jude and Ashleigh when they meet so it is not difficult to predict what will happen.  This is supposedly the first book of a series so, undoubtedly, subsequent books will develop the romance.  I’d definitely have preferred less focus on romance.

I did not find that I warmed to either of the two main characters.  Jude is handsome and intelligent but he just doesn’t come across as a warm person.  We are told that he has “too strong a conscience” and is “too uncompromising on too many fronts.”  He is certainly driven by duty.  Ashleigh is supposedly the strong female lead but some of her behaviour, especially towards the victim’s mother, is unprofessional.  Members of the police team like her almost immediately, but I don’t understand the appeal other than the fact that she is attractive. 

There are some needless repetitions in the book.  Over and over we are told that Jude’s romantic relationship suffered because “there had always been a part of his soul that he’d held back”:  “Sometimes the bleakness of his chosen path was too great for comfort, some of the things he saw too grim to share.”  Ashleigh’s interest in tarot cards comes up again and again.  Some judicious editing would be useful.

Mediocre is the adjective that best describes the book.  It is not terrible, but there is really nothing to differentiate it from so many other similar books. 

Note:  I received a digital galley of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE BOOK WOMAN OF TROUBLESOME CREEK by Kim Michele Richardson (New Release)

3.5 Stars

This is an interesting historical novel.  It is a story about the blue-skinned people of Kentucky, the Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, and life in Depression-era Appalachia. 

Nineteen-year-old Cussy Mary Carter (often called Bluet) is a book woman with the Pack Horse Project, delivering reading materials to the impoverished residents of rural eastern Kentucky in the mid-1930s.  Not only does her job involve physical hardship and danger, she also encounters prejudice because she suffers from methemoglobinemia which causes her to have blue skin.  Because of this inherited genetic condition, she is considered “coloured” and experiences psychological trauma and discrimination.  She isolates herself from most people, except her library patrons. 

Cussy is a fully developed character.  She has a passion for books and her job.  Though her job is not easy, she is determined to bring books to her patrons.  Though there are threats to her safety, she courageously continues her daily deliveries on very isolated routes.  When she encounters bigotry, she remains calm and civil.  Her kind nature has her taking time to read to people, and her generosity is obvious in her leaving food and medicine for people, even though she herself has little.  She does, however, have flaws.  Some of her actions are the result of pride and vanity, and her involvement in the hiding of a dead man makes her less than a perfect person.

Not only do readers learn about the Blues and pack horse librarians, they are also given an in-depth look at life in Appalachia in the 1930s.  The unremitting poverty of the people is shown.  We see their almost daily struggles with hunger.  Because they are isolated and cannot afford the services of a doctor, they rely on folk medicine.  Much of the dialogue is full of appropriate colloquialisms:  “’The young’uns won’t do their chores . . . Them books are doing that – surely making them lazy.  The girls are letting the laundry an’ sewing pile up around their ears, and the boys are reading at the creek when they ought to be fishing and working in the garden.  Plumb can’t get ‘em to work ‘cause they’s so busy sitting and reading them foolish books you’re bent on bringing.’” 

Cussy’s father is a coal miner so there is also considerable information about the conditions men like him endure, “working seventeen-hour days down on a rocky floor with bloody kneecaps in a black hole for scratch, and all the while fearing the next cave-in, the next blast that sends us to our fiery grave.”  The greediness of the mining companies is emphasized:  “The Company didn’t like for the Kentucky man to feel a dollar in his pocket, and they’d pay the miners most in Company scrip – credit that could only be used at the company store – to make sure of just that.  If a fellar balked at having to spend his pay there, he’d be dismissed right quick.  The Company also let workers draw on their earnings before payday, happy to give out scrip as loans with interest to keep the families good ‘n’ indebted to them.”

Cussy’s dad attends union meetings and she worries because “Those type of gatherings were as dangerous as cave-ins, explosions, and the miner’s lung, and what the Company feared and fought fiercely against. . . . [The Company would] shut the meetings down with threats and violence, burn a miner’s house or two, or make the leader of those talks disappear.”

As would be expected, the novel also focuses on the power of books and reading.  Cussy’s father objects to her job but she defends it strongly:  “’People are learning up there. . . . Books are the best way to do that- . . . folks tell me the books eases their burdens, it’s the best thing that could happen to them.’”    Cussy makes scrapbooks which she lends her patrons; those books are filled with recipes, sewing patterns and housecleaning tips which her readers might find useful.  The joy stories bring to children is shown during her visits to a school. 

Pacing is a bit problematic.  The book starts slowly so I found myself wondering if it was going to be a plodding read.  Then the ending is very abrupt; between the two last chapters, four years pass and much is left unexplained. 

The author seems to have tried to include something for everyone.  There is a romance element but there is also violence.  Cussy’s ever-so-loyal mule provides humour, as does Cussy’s encounter with moonshine.  The reader’s emotions are certainly aroused; parts are heartwarming but other parts are heartbreaking.  Personally, I found myself often angry at the narrow-mindedness and injustice.

I would certainly recommend this book to people who enjoy books about books and those who enjoy historical fiction which is the product of extensive research.  Those looking for a strong, female protagonist will also find one here.

Note:  I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. 

Review of BROKEN WINGS by Jia Pingwa (New Release)

3 Stars

Twenty-year-old Butterfly is kidnapped and taken to a remote village to be the wife of Bright Black, a farmer/shopkeeper who keeps her captive in his cave home.  All the villagers are complicit because they know how she came to be in the village and are aware of her imprisonment.  Narrated by Butterfly, the novel focuses on her struggles with her situation; she is determined to find a way to escape or be rescued.

China’s one child policy has resulted in a gender imbalance as more male children than female children were born; now young men are having difficulty finding wives.  Apparently bride kidnapping has recently resurfaced in some parts of China.  In many cases, women are kidnapped and sold to men in poorer regions of the country.  This is what happens to Butterfly.  In an afterword, the author mentions that her story is based on what happened to the daughter of a neighbour in his home village. 

Obviously, the reader will feel sympathy for Butterfly.  She is tricked and taken far away from her mother, her only family.  When the book opens, she has been held 178 days.  The villagers come and gawk at her, but no one helps her since capturing a bride seems to be an accepted practice.  Bright Black is not the only one who has purchased an abducted woman because “there were plenty of men in the village and a dozen or more were wifeless, ‘bare branches’ as they were called.”  There is a strong desire to continue the family line:  “Bright’s dad was scared stiff that his son would never marry . . . and the family would die out.”  It is expected, therefore, that Butterfly is raped so she can ensure the continuation of the Black family. 

Butterfly is brutalized but it is obvious that the author also wants the reader to have some sympathy for Bright as well.  He is not totally evil.  There are several instances of his caring and compassion for Butterfly.  He buys special food for her such as steamed wheat buns; “There were always plenty of soybeans left, and I knew he’d saved them for me.”  When Butterfly is experiencing great pain, Bright says, “’I won’t say anything, you scream and swear all you like if it makes it hurt less.’”  In the Afterword, the author writes about the “barbarous practice of snatching women” but he also bemoans that “The recent transformation of China has led to the biggest migration of people from the countryside to the city in history. . . . In remote backward areas, the men who lack the ability, the skills or the funds to leave, are left behind in the villages to scratch a living on the land.  They have no possibility of marrying. . . . no one mentions the fact that the cities have plundered wealth, labour power and women from the villages.  No one talks about the men left behind in the wastelands to wither like gourds on the frame, flowering once, then dying fruitless.”

The book is written in a detached, unemotional style which is unusual and unexpected because Butterfly is the narrator.  Her emotions, for example, are not described in great detail.  When she is raped, she has an out-of-body experience; her spirit leaves her body and she describes only what she sees being done to Butterfly.  The author explains that he cannot write “violent, extreme narratives” and, instead, compares his writing to “ink-wash paintings” whose essence lies in “the ‘suggestion’ rather than the detail.” 

There are many minor characters, most of whom are known by their nicknames:  Blindy is Bright’s blind uncle; a stutterer is called Tongue-Trip; and a woman who suffers from acne is addressed as Auntie Spotty-Face.  These names often seem callous and offensive. 

The character who seems most respected is Great-Grandad who tries to teach Butterfly to make the best of her situation.  He advises her to “’Just pick out the good [beans]’” and tells her, “’if you treasure something precious, it’ll last longer than plastic, wood or iron.’”  He always tries to see the positive; when a man is teased that he can’t see heaven, Great-Grandad says, “’Well, heaven’s looking at him.’” 

Over time, Butterfly seems to adopt Great-Grandad’s attitude because she makes observations like “it was only by meeting people halfway that you could grab an opportunity and gain some momentum from it, and then everything went easy” and “The stones anchoring the fleeceflower root stayed put – they couldn’t grow roots or wings, they just got covered in muddy water but they didn’t complain, did they?” 

There are sections of the book where focus is placed on things that seem irrelevant.  For instance, Butterfly mentions that she has learned how to make corn pudding and then describes the process in great detail; the making of buckwheat noodles follows; and then there’s a lengthy section describing the many ways potatoes are eaten.  Surely all of this information is not needed just to show that she is adapting to life in the village?

This book did not always keep my interest.  The dispassionate style just doesn’t feel natural given the subject matter.  Dialogue sounds robotic and there are even strange non-sequiturs:  “Then, after Padlock’s wife got stung to death by hornets, Good-Son made up his mind to leave and get a labouring job in the city.”  What’s the connection between the death of one man’s wife and another man’s decision to leave the village for the city? 

Jia Pingwa is apparently one of China’s most popular writers, so I looked forward to reading this book.  Unfortunately, though it addresses an important issue, the novel is not a compelling read.

Note:  I received a digital galley of the book from the publisher via NetGalley.