#bookreview – Page 4 – the shiny diaries

The Cemetery of Untold Stories

📍 Dominican Republic 🇩🇴

Alma Cruz is a successful writer in the US. Even with all her fame and wealth, she constantly has this gnawing sensation that something’s missing. One day she decides to move from Vermont to her homeland, Dominican Republic, in the pursuit of peace and happiness. This decision is met with a lot of opposition and criticism from her other three sisters. Nonetheless, she moves to her country and decides to open a cemetery in the backyard of her house. When the locals hear about this oddity of a plan, they gossip, eavesdrop and even scramble to secure a job at this cemetery only to know that this cemetery would be for all the unfinished manuscripts and stories that Alma as a writer began earnestly but could never finish.

To bring this cemetery to fruition, she hires an architect who starts building sculptures of the people beside the graves where their stories lay buried. To do the upkeep of the cemetery and maintain the house, Alma also hires Filomena from the neighbourhood. As Filomena starts working at the cemetery, the sculptures start coming to life and start telling their stories. Bienvenida talks about her distraught life, her troubled marriage with the dictator el Jefe (Trujillo), his second marriage to his mistress because of Bienvenida’s miscarriages, his decision to exile her, the premeditated reconciliation during the exile that leads to Bienvenida’s pregnancy, and later forcibly separating the daughter from her under the pretext of a safe and secure upbringing. Filomena too starts chatting about her life, the feud with her sister Perla, the unconditional love for her nephew Pepito, the estrangement between the sisters and a recent tragedy that forces understanding between them. As the stories intermingle, and the characters real and unreal get candid with their lives, we soon realise that these stories aren’t separate, instead are interconnected.

Alma comes across as a stoic, independent, intelligent woman who remains resilient through her unconventional choices. She straddles her immigrant identity, the realities of being Dominican American and the belongingness to her Dominican heritage. She oscillates between the rights and the wrongs, but remains resolute with her decision, no matter the consequences. Filomena, is a harbinger of unconditional love despite a tedious and lonely life. Others’ selfishness never extinguishes the selflessness that’s inherent in her. Bienvenida’s docility and fragility shouldn’t be mistaken as her personality for they tend to overshadow her grit and perseverance.

Julia Alvarez’s latest book, The Cemetery of untold stories, was my pick for September’s Hispanic Heritage Month. Julia is a poet, novelist and essayist and is regarded as one of the most significant contemporary Latina writers. The book is unique not just because of its plot line that indulges in magical realism but also the language and writing style. Spanish is generously interspersed with English, to the extent that I thought the book was written in Span-glish (if that could be a word!), which I thoroughly enjoyed. The author has taken her time to build the story, she has let the characters grow with the story; almost as if one is uplifting the other in a surreal symbiosis. There’s also an interesting queer character in the book. Dominican culture, geography and politics form an integral part of the narrative and Alvarez proudly flaunts all its naïveté and nicety.

The Cemetery of untold stories is Julia Alvarez’s allegory to letting go and providing oneself the proverbial closure to everything that has remained incomplete and insufficient. Quite poetic, indeed!

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😎

I Kick and I Fly

Ruchira Gupta, journalist, activist, Emmy award winning documentarian, has written this ‘social justice adventure novel’ that celebrates hope even in the pit of despair. Heera, the fourteen year old girl protagonist in the book, lives in the red light district of Forbesganj, Bihar that borders Nepal. Her entire life, she has witnessed women being forced into prostitution, tortured and brutally abused. Since she belongs to the Nat tribe where there is intergenerational prostitution, her father is keen for her to carry on with this abominable tradition. While Heera vehemently opposes this, and is keen to pursue education, she faces innumerable struggles and ostracism at her school due to her caste and where she comes from. Her mother and her brother Salman remain her only support system. But one day, when she is expelled from her school and the threat of her being sold off as a prostitute at a local fair starts becoming more real, she seeks help from Rini Di who runs a girls hostel. Rini is actively fighting prostitution in the locality while taking on all the big names who are involved in this global trafficking racket. She also is providing a safe haven to the rescued girls and survivors. She imparts kung fu training to them and Heera soon becomes proficient in it, which slowly changes the entire trajectory of her life.

The book is a gritty retelling of the horrific realities of child trafficking and human trafficking that abound our cities, towns and villages. While we often turn a blind eye to this grim actuality, Ruchira Gupta has made it her life’s mission to rescue and rehabilitate the vulnerable women survivors; and she does it through her Nonprofit organisation, Apne Aap. The story too is inspired by real life events and characters, and while it begins on a very hopeless note, she sees to it that as it progresses, hopelessness keeps turning into hopefulness, and the proverbial hope just doesn’t remain an elusive dream but something real that can be claimed, built and asserted, even when all odds are against you.

Not just Heera, the narrative is peppered with various strong women characters such as Mai, Azra and Mira Di. The book celebrates resilience, determination, sisterhood and the joys of conviviality, friendship and community. While we feel shame in even uttering the word prostitution and prostitute; the women survivors of this profession are now looking us in the eye and demanding their rightful respect and dignity. Ruchira Gupta is helping countless such women to regain their self respect and this book, ‘I kick and I fly’ is just another resounding message for the same.

Must read.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🙌

Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture

📍 Gaza 🇵🇸

Gaza, a city having history spanning thousands of years, that once celebrated life and laughter has now become synonymous with death and destruction since the Israeli occupation began. It’s become a graveyard of lost lives, homes and hopes. The book, Daybreak in Gaza, is an anthology of essays and short stories by Palestinians from Gaza, West Bank and the diaspora who recount an erstwhile Gaza, a Gaza of their dreams, a Gaza of their grandparents and great grandparents and a present day Gaza that is witnessing a relentless genocide from the 7th October, 2023. Many of the writers give first hand accounts of the bombing and devastation that has happened mercilessly in front of their eyes. Some of the stories are diary entries as bombs go off in the background, buildings collapse and cries of despair echo constantly. Some of these writers have been killed in the ongoing war.

Gaza has been reduced to a rubble, Gazans as a statistic. This book, has allowed a different version of Gaza to be seen, albeit the grave circumstances currently. We see Gaza as a thriving center of trade, culture, education and living prior to the Nakba of 1948. Through the various stories we are introduced to the rich history of the city and Palestine even after the Nakba and all that followed with the Egyptian occupation to the First and Second Intifada and the Oslo Accords which turned out to be criminally counterproductive to the Palestinians. And then there are the horrifying, heart wrenching, soul shattering stories of the ongoing genocide replete with unimaginable sorrow that makes this book such a necessity.

Daybreak in Gaza is a difficult read. But to think about it, can this difficulty even come close to the horrendous atrocities being meted out to Gazans since forever and especially now since October 7th, 2023? After every chapter I had to pause. Because every chapter, every page, every word is imbued with the hurt and anger that the Gazans are facing. This book is drenched in their tears and wails that the world has turned a deaf ear to. This book is a testament to their rightful hatred towards all of us for our cowardice and consent for the genocide.

Daybreak in Gaza has been edited by Mahmoud Muna and Matthew Teller with Juliette Touma and Jayyab Abusafia. Mahmoud is a writer, publisher and bookseller from Jerusalem. Matthew is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. Juliette works for the UNRWA and Jayyab is a London-based journalist from Jabalia refugee camp in the north of Gaza.

As of 5th November, 2024, 200,000+ Palestinians are projected to have been killed by Israel and the USA in Gaza since 7th October, 2023. Two thirds of the buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces. The $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel, which is part of a $38 billion, 10 year deal signed by the Obama administration (2018-2028), has supported the occupation and the ethnic cleansing. Since October 2023, at least another $17.9 billion have been funnelled into Israel’s military.

How have we let this happen? Is this the world we are a part of wherein a certain population can be ethnically cleansed while no one bats an eyelid? Is this the world where we still call America the greatest country and completely ignore its acts of terrorism? I think we certainly are.

I shall end my review with these quotes from the book;

From the chapter, My heart is broken, by Saba Timraz:

“Has our life become a game, controlled by America and the occupier? They kill, destroy and do whatever they can to harm us, and then tell the world that they are the victims, and we are the monsters. We are an occupied people and have been since 1917. Our lands were stolen, our honour was violated, and the building blocks of our lives were destroyed. We want to be liberated and to live in freedom and dignity. We will not surrender our rights, no matter how long it takes.”

From the chapter, History will not lie, by Susan Abulhawa:

“But history will not lie. It will record that Israel perpetrated a holocaust in the twenty-first century.”

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🍉

The Lion Women of Tehran

📍 Iran 🇮🇷

It’s Tehran in the 1950s. Progressive and on the brink of change. Ellie, living an affluent life, is now forced to move to a poorer neighbourhood with her cantankerous mother after her father’s untimely death. Seven year old Ellie is happy to be in her new surroundings and keeps yearning for a good friend. Enter Homa, who with her free spirited and rambunctious personality soon becomes best friends with her. Together they dare to dream and don’t shy away from being ambitious whilst breaking some harmless rules along the way. Ellie’s mother despises Homa and remains condescending towards their friendship. She remarries so that they can return to their moneyed ways, marking an end to Ellie and Homa’s relationship. Years pass by, and Ellie is now one of the most popular girls of her posh school. Homa secures admission to the same school, and while she is ecstatic to reunite with Ellie; Ellie doesn’t feel the same. Ellie’s hesitation and snobbery don’t stand a chance to Homa’s infectious enthusiasm and simplicity. Soon they are back to being friends which again irks Ellie’s mother. Homa is determined to be a lawyer so that she can bring about reforms in women’s rights in Iran. She also remains committed to political activism. She constantly eggs Ellie to pursue her education. Ellie on the other hand is besotted with Mehrdad and wants to be married. Despite this clash of values and interests, they forge their friendship until one unfortunate misunderstanding that leads to a catastrophic incident upending their lives forever.

My favourite Iranian author, Marjan Kamali, is back with her third and latest book, The Lion Women of Tehran, and this one is a stark departure from her previous works. Women are the front and center of this narrative. Marjan has put female friendship as the protagonist of this book and has charted its course through trials and tribulations, financial disparities and long distance.

Marjan has written a story about feminism and everything it encompasses. Through Homa, she has portrayed the quintessential activist woman who is striving to make the world a better place for other women. Homa embodies fortitude, tenacity and resilience. Through Ellie, the author has made us broaden the scope of feminism and makes a case for women who willingly choose to be a homemaker. These are the women who are omnipresent in all our lives and yet easily forgotten by the feminist movement. However, Ellie’s character brings this subtlety and nuance to the conversation. Though debatable and dubious, Ellie’s mother is fierce in her own way taking ownership for her choices and actions, and yet standing tall.

As with her previous books, Marjan has left no stone unturned in describing Iran’s political landscape and its innate turmoil and turbulence alongside Ellie and Homa’s story. She guides us through all the major political upheavals that have changed Iran’s society and the consciousness at large. The horrific killing of Mahsa Amini and the riots that have followed since for women’s liberation in Iran also find a commendable mention in the book.

The book is purely Persian in its essence and celebrates all the ‘shir zan’ (lion women) of Iran. Persian culture has been brought to life in Marjan’s writing. The book is suffused with Persian cooking and the aromas literally waft through the pages. Food just doesn’t feature here for celebration but also denotes a revolution. Farsi words and sentences find considerable mention in the book. It’s such a joy to read it and to find similarities between Farsi and Hindi/ Urdu.

Marjan Kamali writes so evocatively about love, friendship and Iran. She also challenges patriarchy and chauvinism fearlessly. The book is so achingly beautiful; it’s compassionate and passionate in the same breath and with every word.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😇

Brotherless Night

📍 Jaffna, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

Sashi is an earnest, young girl full of hope and aspirations, dreaming of becoming a doctor and serving her people in Jaffna. Her family consists of her parents and four brothers. The eldest, Niranjan is already a doctor and dotes on her, constantly encouraging her to study so that she can crack her exams. Seelan and Dayalan, have natural political inclinations and often engage in charged rhetoric. Aran is subdued and wanting a simple and peaceful life. However, it’s 1981 and life in Jaffna is never peaceful. The Tamils are facing crackdown and oppression from the government resulting in a growing dissent and uprising. Niranjan disappears during one such riots in Colombo; their grandmother’s house gets torched to ashes by violent zealots while Sashi and Ammammah escape and endure a perilous and arduous journey back to Jaffna. These events prompt Seelan and Dayalan to join the militant group, Tamil Tigers, who now have taken control of whole of Jaffna. As the government and Tamil Tigers engage in skirmishes, Sashi gets admission to a medical school. There, persuaded by her friend K, joins the Tigers’ field hospital and starts treating their cadres as well as civilians. At her college she comes across her professor who soon becomes her mentor and confidante, Anjali. However, with the political situation becoming increasingly volatile and dangerous, she loses Seelan and Dayalan to the movement; Anjali gets abducted and Aran decides to emigrate. Sashi is gripped by her righteous rage and beliefs, and faces the predicament of whether she should stay back or join Aran and how her future now depends on this very important decision.

The book is a breathless, often claustrophobic account of Sashi’s difficult choices, her internal struggles as she oscillates between interests and intentions, her emotional turmoils as she navigates loss and grief, and her mental prowess dealing with hope and hopelessness. Sashi as a character is an unassuming force to reckon with. The narrative also takes us on a journey of Sri Lanka’s political quagmire, the helplessness of Tamil civilians as they are caught between the militant groups, the government and the Indian Peace Keeping Force. Massacre ensues as places and people get bombed, and depression looms large at every turn.

Brotherless Night, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, is a historical fiction written so brilliantly, that it is unsettling and uncomfortable. The gifted author, V. V. Ganeshananthan, builds the restlessness of the characters, as they encounter death and dilemmas and keeps the book unrelentingly atmospheric. The writing is compelling and persuasive, peppered with Tamil words. Tamil culture, cuisine and traditions get the requisite mention throughout the book. There are moments of such literary brilliance in the book; the scene where Sashi’s docile mother emerges as the proverbial phoenix and leads an uprising against the government along with a group of fierce, inspiring women; the dialogues between Anjali and Sashi as they contemplate the movement, the militants and their pursuit and purpose; as also the extremely unnerving and shocking medical examination scene of a rape victim, brutalised by the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

Brotherless Night will disturb you and it should. It is a complex catastrophic story of survival amidst doom and despair. The ingenuity of the author is such that despite the barbarism and violence on display, humanity finds its place; in the thoughts, conversations and actions of its various characters. This is literature at its finest; V. V. Ganeshananthan, its proud torchbearer.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🥹

Thirteen Months of Sunrise

📍 Sudan 🇸🇩

Sudan, is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and has been afflicted by repeated revolutions, civil wars and military dictatorships leading to international sanctions and isolation, internal instability and factional violence. Sudan achieved independence on 1st January 1956 from Egyptian and British colonisation. The partition of Sudan happened in 2011 and South Sudan was formed in July 2011. The war in Darfur was a major armed conflict in Sudan from 2003 to 2020, akin to a genocide, leading to hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and deaths, brutal rapes and various other horrific human rights violations.

This novella, my pick for Women in Translation Month, is an anthology of short stories, set in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. These stories offer a contemporary outlook on Sudan but often replete with the issues plaguing Sudanese people such as poverty, insecurity and safety. The first story, titled ‘Thirteen months of Sunrise’, is about a bittersweet friendship between a Sudanese woman and an Ethiopian man; also why Ethiopia has thirteen months! The other stories that stood out were, ‘A woman asleep on her Bundle’, that spoke about a woman’s benevolence despite her abject poverty and hence forced ostracism; ‘Stray Steps’, that portrayed a diabetic woman’s ordeal with hunger and hypoglycaemia and how stray dogs come to her rescue; and ‘Doors’, a story about an unemployed man’s hope of securing a job only to be left despondent and indignant.

Rania Mamoun is a Sudanese fiction writer and journalist, known for her novels, poems and short stories. The book which has been translated from Arabic into English by Elisabeth Jaquette, won the Pen Translates Award in 2017 and was also shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2020.

The ongoing civil war that began during Ramadan on 15th April, 2023, between the two rival factions of the military government of Sudan, has been concentrated around the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region. The country is facing one of the most severe humanitarian crises in recent history. According to the UN, UNHCR and Amnesty International; over 18,800 people have been killed; 6.7 million are at risk of gender-based violence, particularly women and girls; 755k people are on the brink of famine and 25.6 million people are in acute hunger that includes more than 8.5 million people facing emergency levels of hunger. Over 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes both within the country and across its borders; out of which over 7.7 million are internally displaced persons; as the devastating civil war heads for its 500th day.

Sudan, Gaza, DR Congo, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Manipur. The world in 2024.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😞

The Mystery Guest

Molly Gray is back. She’s socially awkward, fails to understand the world around her, misses the obvious, has a keen eye for the unobvious and has a flair for the English language. She’s now the Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, has a loving relationship with her boyfriend Juan and has again become entangled in another scandalous murder. J. D. Grimthorpe, an award winning mystery writer, is supposed to make a big announcement and has booked the hotel’s Tea room for the event. The room is packed to the rafters with journalists, media professionals, photographers and eager fan club members. Grimthorpe takes the stage, sips his tea on stage and drops dead. Lily, a maid-in-training under Molly was responsible for arranging his tea cart and had handed him the tea in front of everyone. Detective Stark is tasked with solving this mystery and again Molly becomes her unlikely partner.

It’s a very simple murder mystery and the author presents various characters as suspects including Grimthorpe’s secretary, Serena Sharpe; Hotel’s manager Mr. Snow and even Mr. Preston, the kind grandfather figure in the life of Molly who continues to dote on her. The happenings in the book are fast paced and this time around the author provides substantial backstory on Molly’s childhood growing up with her Gran. Molly continues to fight the social odds stacked against her and with her grit, perseverance, unassuming intelligence and cheeky wit cracks this murder too.

For all those who have read Nita Prose’s debut book, The Maid, which for the first time introduced us to Molly, this second book, doesn’t disappoint. Through Molly, the author drives home the message that, everybody deserves to be seen and no one should be underestimated because of their appearance or background. Nita has created a world of hope and optimism, while Molly brings in the beauty in her oddity.

Heartwarming, once again!

Kairos

📍 Germany 🇩🇪

Katharina is a nineteen year old girl living in East Berlin. Hans is a fifty plus gentleman, a novelist and working for a local broadcaster, also living in East Berlin. The year is 1986. The Berlin Wall is intact. Katharina and Hans have a romantic meet cute and soon start dating each other. She gets completely besotted with Hans and turns a blind eye to his behaviours and transgressions. Hans is a married man and has a son. He has various extramarital relationships while being married to Ingrid. Katharina is aware of his philandering ways but is too consumed by his charm, his sex appeal, his taste in music, art and books to even subconsciously register it as a concern. When Katharina goes away to Frankfurt an der Oder for a year, for a theatre internship, she develops a close friendship with her colleague Vadim. He has feelings for Katharina and after multiple romantic and sexual advances from his side, one fine day, they end up having sex. Through one of the loose pages of her diary, Hans finds out about this affair and mayhem ensues.

Hans is mortified by Katharina’s behaviour and leaves no stone unturned in punishing her. He emotionally abuses her, threatens to end the relationship and even violates her sexually. He periodically records his disdain and hatred for her as cassettes, both sides, 60 minutes each and expects her to answer him. The verbal abuse meted out through these recordings is excruciating. Katharina continues to soothe his chauvinism and misplaced anger by dutifully listening to these recordings, genuinely begging for his forgiveness, despite the repeated attacks on her character and morality. The relentless oppression makes Katharina question the love if it exists between them, even forcing her to self censor at times, but is never able to end the relationship. She continues to suffer because she feels, she deserves it and Hans continues with his torture routine, because he believes, she deserves it.

At the same time, Germany is in the midst of the Cold War. The tensions between East and West Berlin continue to escalate. The political situation becomes volatile and chaotic leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Soon after the fall, it almost seems like an erasure of East Berlin as the West with its wealth and capitalism takes over, leaving no traces of what was once before, the people and the city. These developments run parallel to Katharina and Hans’ relationship, being metaphorical at times; creating an atmosphere of foreboding and unease.

This isn’t a love story, but a story about control. Hans wanted total control over Katharina’s mind and body under the garb of love, but the moment it faltered, control easily metamorphosed into misogyny and toxic masculinity, also under the garb of love. Katharina is groomed by Hans since the beginning of the relationship and because of her tender age and his towering seniority gets moulded into believing the necessity for her suffering because of her indiscretion, prompting acquiescence. At some point, as a reader, you wonder if Katharina wanted to sabotage herself and her happiness by being in this relationship. She represents millions of women worldwide who suffer through such sexist bullying and exploitation, because they aren’t aware of their worth, and of a life outside of emotional captivity.

Jenny Erpenbeck, a prolific German author and opera director, is the first German writer to win the International Booker Prize for Kairos, which is also the first novel originally written in German to win the award. Kairos has been written with a lot of consideration for German politics, the history and the societal structure of East and West Berlin. The book also makes a poignant case for ‘love bombing’ and ‘breadcrumbing’ in relationships. Erpenbeck takes us on Katharina’s traumatic journey of abuse without sugarcoating it. As a reader, you squirm and feel frustrated for Katharina and I wondered, if she felt ennui in Hans’ narcissism. Music, art and theatre play a significant part of the narrative and the author delves deep into them through conversations between the protagonists. Michael Hofmann, a German poet and translator, who shared the International Booker Prize with Erpenbeck, has done an exacting translation of the original.

Kairos is a multilayered sensory experience. The story and the politics kept me intrigued and exasperated simultaneously. Chopin’s Nocturne and Polonaise seem perfect for part one of the book, while Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Goldberg Variations blend in seamlessly with the second and Mozart’s Symphony is the ideal score for the climax. Read the book with these musical masterpieces in the background! I am definitely doing a reread.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 👏

The Many That I Am : Writings from Nagaland

📍 Nagaland

Nagaland has been mired in political turmoil and various occupations. From the British to the Japanese and the Indian state, the Nagas have suffered violence and persecution. Hence, there isn’t much literature from those troubled times. However, they do have a rich tradition of oral literature, history and culture passed down through word of mouth from generation to generation. It’s only after the formation of Nagaland statehood in 1963 that some writings started appearing. By the turn of the century is when the dawn of writing in Nagaland truly began.

This book is an anthology of short stories, personal essays and poems interspersed with painting prints. What makes this book compelling is that all of the writers and artists are women, and it has equal space for contemporary and debutantes alongside prominent, established writers such as Temsula Ao, Easterine Kire and Avinuo Kire.

The writings essentially reflect the issues plaguing Naga society and Naga women. Patriarchy is the biggest social evil and most of the essays and poems portray its intergenerational traumatic consequences due to the abject denial of its existence. The poems, I wish you were a man by Abokali Jimoni, I just hate and NoNoNo woman by rōzumarī raṁsāra, are poetic lashings at the rigid patriarchal constructs and how women are now walking away from them. The story, My Mother’s Daughter by Neikehienuo Mepfhüo, brings about the widely prevalent but silenced epidemic of domestic violence; which when unchallenged becomes the norm of a woman’s lived experience. The power to forgive by Avinuo Kire, is a gut wrenching story on rape and what happens when righteous anger, hatred and the decision to forgive are taken away from the victim. Many of the stories depict the sense of belonging that Nagas have for their land and their peoples. Martha’s mother by Hekali Zhimoni was a stand out story for the sheer wit, resilience and composure shown by the mother when faced with an emotionally volatile predicament.

Anungla Zoe Longkumer is a writer, musician and filmmaker, based in Dimapur, Nagaland. Through this genre defying book, she has unleashed the creative pursuits of Naga women writers and has presented to the world the glorious literature from Nagaland that is steeped in folklore and continues to challenge myths, traditions and our collective consciousness.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😇

Wild Geese

Wild Geese, written by trans writer, Soula Emmanuel; the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards winner for Transgender Fiction; is a vivid exploration of the complexities of human existence, especially when people refuse to conform to their societal perceptions. Phoebe Forde, is a thirty year old Irish trans woman, three years into her transition, pursuing her PhD from a Swedish University and living in Copenhagen, Denmark. She leaves Ireland to chart a new life for her as a trans woman, and to escape from a life that was no longer serving her. She is living a pretty nondescript life in Copenhagen with her dog, when suddenly one day, her ex girlfriend Grace, shows up at her doorstep.

The book is essentially what happens between Phoebe and Grace over one weekend. Their past lives, their individual and shared traumas, their anger and insecurities, their contemplations about a blurry future get sometimes muddled, sometimes real and many times jarring in the present, as they speak unfiltered, not shying from the awkwardness of each other’s presence, yet getting caught in the awkwardness of their truth and lies, things said and unsaid, emotions discerned and disregarded, leading to an incongruence of expectations and a cacophony of explicit suppositions often blanketed by a symphony of territorial understanding.

Phoebe comes across as a very real person having the rightful fears and anxieties about her existence so much so that, she prefers anonymity. The author sensitively and sensibly portrays her experience as a trans woman without making it a spectacle ever. Phoebe isn’t out there to challenge people’s beliefs and wage a war against transphobia, rather through her confusions and complications, shows her authenticity, vulnerability and reality. Even when Grace, with her preconceived notions provokes Phoebe, she prefers to remain calm and engages her in an esoteric debate over bodies, minds and belongingness.

The writer, Soula Emmanuel, an Irish trans woman, whose debut work is Wild Geese, has used the book as a meditative consideration on a trans person’s lived experience. It is quiet, benevolent and benign. Soula tactfully never tries to answer all the questions that readers may have about Phoebe. Through her nuanced writing, she emphatically states that trans lives are not for scrutiny and examination. The dreamy Copenhagen forms the perfect backdrop to stage Phoebe and Grace’s chance rendezvous. However, there were times, wherein I felt, the prose to be too metaphorical and the language difficult. The conversations between Phoebe and Grace are easy to read, but Phoebe’s internal monologue seems demanding in terms of the language. My pedantic views shouldn’t really stop anyone from picking this profoundly glorious book. An astute, unambiguous, unapologetic and forthright voice in Trans literature. Bravo Soula!

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍⚧️