EVER SINCE WE SMALL
CELESTE MOHAMMED
Ig Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 paperback, available now
Rating: 4.75* of five
The Publisher Says: An intricately woven tapestry of stories where survival, resilience and self-discovery are passed down through several generations of an Indo-Trinidadian family, Ever Since We Small is a sweeping epic that takes us from the days of the British Raj in India to multicultural modern Trinidad.
Written in a blend of Standard English and several flavors of Trinidad kriol, Ever Since We Small follows the bloodline of a young woman, Jayanti, following her decision to become a girmitiya, an indentured laborer in the Caribbean. The generational after-effects of this decision are seen in the lives of Jayanti's grandson, Lall, who seeks to escape the rural village where he was born, but instead becomes seduced and corrupted by urban life, and sis son, Shiva, who is forced to take a child-bride, Salma, but never recovers from the guilt. Heartache then follows for their three children, who must each find a way to accept and yet move past their parents' failed example.
Along the journey of these ten interconnected stories, the alchemy necessary to turn the family's inheritance of pain into a "generation of gold" requires intervention by the living and dead, the "real" and the mythical, the mundane and the magical, the secular and the sacred.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: In January 2024 I reviewed Pleasantview, the first braided-stories collection from the author. Like this work, it used Standard English interspersed with Trinidad and Tobago's kriols, as that's how the colonizers' language is used in that social setting. Each tongue has its place, each comes into play at certain conversational inflection points.
That will be a problem for some readers; I batten on it. It feels less like I'm reading a novel than listening in on life as the characters are living it. That makes the read feel more immediate, more as though it is happening not being reported after it's over. Quite a feat for a book!
I'll modify the Bryce Method of reporting on each story because the stories are more like ten chapters than ten self-contained, completely satisfying narratives. Again, this is to me a feature not a bug; but for others it might feel like a deal-breaker...or
I'll modify the Bryce Method of reporting on each story because the stories are more like ten chapters than ten self-contained, completely satisfying narratives. Again, this is to me a feature not a bug; but for others it might feel like a deal-breaker...or -maker for some.
THEN 1899-2000
The Legend of Jayanti treats the matter of the ancestral matriarch with the plainspoken matter-of-factness it does not deserve...this is drama enough to sustain a three-act opera! In the story, a young widow declines to satisfy her husband's family honor by committing sati, which you can look up yourselves. She instead leaves the Raj for indenture in the colony of Trinidad and Tobago. On the trip she meets and marries a man who fathers the line of descendants we're following here. 5*
Outsiders follows Shiva, their great-grandson, as he incurs a supernatural curse. He accidentally drowns a "buck" and is doomed from then on.
Godfrey's Revenge sees Shiva reap the terrible price of his carelessness. He and his child bride, Salma, are destitute; he's maimed; and he's racked with guilt over his role in the victimization of Salma. Doesn't have the wherewithal to refuse, but guilt is its own punishment.
Sundar Larki brutally finishes Shiva's curse for his crime against the buck. Here he commits more horrifying acts, truly repugnant ones that are explained but not excused by his being under a curse. The three Shiva stories as a unit merit 5*
NOW 2000-2017
The Visitation treats Shiva and Salma's daughter Abby's anxiety about her dark skin as she prepares to meet her white American boyfriend in the flesh for the first time. It's a gut-punch. Are women only to be judged by their attractiveness to men? Are darker-skinned people inherently less attractive because the Western mass media landscape promotes whiteness as The Standard? Are white men, of necessity, exoticizing darker-skinned women, and is this inherently victimization? None of these are explicitly asked, but they are very much there in the narrative. Answers...well...the questions matter far more. 5*
The title story, Terre Brulée,Goat-Mouth, Star Girl, and The Gospel According to Boisey, all have their own delights. None merited less than four stars, which is why the collection as a whole gets almost all five stars. I encourage all y'all to get on this bandwagon now, preorder one...they'll send a Kindle sample to you if you want to try the waters...but please get this marvelous exploration of the way humans relate to Others, and how deeply that shapes every conversation we have, knowingly or unknowingly.
Celeste Mohammed helps us think through the settler-colonial mindset by showing us in these lives the many ways it simply replicates itself, a malign meme of judgment that relentlessly pushes some down so others can stand on their backs.
Strongly, strongly recommended.
