Starred review from April 23, 2018
Chariandy's powerful and incendiary second novel (following Soucouyant) probes the ramifications of police violence on marginalized communities and delivers a nuanced portrait of a family struggling to stay afloat as circumstances stack against them. Set during the summer of 1991 in the Park, a suburban Toronto housing complex, the narrative tracks the coming of age of two mixed-heritage brothers as they cling to and ultimately test the patience of their hardworking Trinidadian single mother, "one of those black mothers unwilling to either seek or accept help from others." During the boys' teen years, sensitive Michael fumbles through his first real relationship with Aisha, a girl from the block and "the sort of girl the world considers 'an example' or 'the exception,'â" while his streetwise and volatile older brother, Francis, becomes obsessed with the city's burgeoning hip-hop scene. Unfortunately, Francis's passion for music doesn't quell his problem with authority, and a run-in with the police at a local hangout turns violent, with devastating consequences. Told from Michael's perspective, the novel presents a grim realityâgang shootings, entrenched racism and fear, lack of opportunity, and loss. But instead of relying on stale stereotypes, Chariandy imbues his resilient characters and their stories with strength, dignity, and hope. This is an impressive novel written by an author in total command of his story.
Starred review from May 15, 2018
A novel about the indignities, frustrations, and joy found in a Toronto public housing complex.The Park is a sprawling complex home to thousands of residents struggling to find work, take care of each other, and get through another day. Like so many of the Park's residents, Michael and Francis are the children of an immigrant single mother. Ruth came from Trinidad with dreams of becoming a nurse; instead, she's working multiple jobs, riding buses for hours, and coming home too exhausted to even sleep. Michael and Francis are learning how to survive in the Park as young men. They know how to posture, which guys to avoid, and how to act when the police roll through. Chariandy's second novel (Soucouyant, 2007) is a slender volume with the heart of a family epic. Alternating between Michael and Francis' teenage years and a present time in which everything is darker, sadder, and Francis is nowhere to be found, Chariandy reveals a world of violence, frustrated hopes, and the delicate family bonds necessary for survival. The prose is beautiful and unflinching without giving way to sentimentality: "I know now that by the age of fourteen, you feel it. You spot the threat that is not only about young men with weapons, about 'gangs' and 'predators, ' but also the threat that is slow and somehow very old. A mother lecturing you about arrival and opportunity while her breath stinks of the tooth she can't just for the moment afford the time or money to fix." When violence and an increased police presence enter the Park, the creeping sense of doom inches closer and readers can feel the oncoming tragedy in their guts. In the other storyline, set in the present, Michael and his mother stumble toward healing and a brighter day. Their journey, like the novel itself, isn't always easy but it is absolutely necessary.An important, riveting novel about dreams, families, and the systems holding them back.
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April 15, 2018
This is the story, set in the early '80s, of two brothers, Michael and Francis. The narrative moves backward and forward in time, showing the boys growing up in a depressed Toronto community called the Park with a single parent, their Trinidadian mother. Their father, also from Trinidad, is long gone, and Francis, older than Michael by one year, is eventually gone, too, having moved out when he was 18 in the wake of a traumatic neighborhood shooting. Flash-forward 10 years, and now, in the present, the mother is suffering from a clinical condition called complicated grief, and readers will understand that something terrible has happened to Francis. Now, too, a young woman named Aisha, once Michael's girlfriend, is staying with him and his mother, along with Jelly, the boy who was Francis' best friend. The tone of this often melancholy story is elegiac, as Michael tells it in his muted, first-person voice. The characters are well drawn, and the setting is beautifully realized. The result is a haunting story that will linger in readers' memories.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)