TBR Book Jar Lucky Dip — April 2024
My lucky dip from the TBR Book Jar this month has offered me a choice between a novel set in Wales, one from Brazil and a Booker prize contender set in Zimbabwe.
Thicker Than Water by Bethan Darwin
Bethan’s novel is one of the many, many titles I’ve bought from the independent Welsh press, Honno in recent years. This one is a tale of a Canadian company that plans to set up a shirt manufacturing base in a Welsh valley that is struggling with high levels of unemployment and despair. For the head of a Cardiff law company, asked to help get the new enterprise off the ground, the plan will create turmoil as the history of some older family members comes to light.
Antonio by Beatriz Bracher
Bracher is a Brazilian author who has published four novels (though only two have been translated into English) as well as short stories and film screenplays. Antonio focuses on the attempts by Benjamin to get to the truth about a tragic family secret. The people most closely involved are all dead so he has to rely on the memories of their friends — but each of them tell a different version of the facts.
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
This has been described as a tense and psychologically charged novel about a woman’s descent into poverty in modern Harare. Tambudzai is faced with fresh humiliation every time she things she has reached a turning point in her attempt to make a better life for herself. The painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.
It’s Dangarembga’s second novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020 but lost out to Shuggie Bain.
And the vote goes to …….
I’d be happy to read any of these three. I was very tempted to choose Antonio because a) it’s short and b) it’s years since I last read any author from Brazil. But This Mournable Body just nudged ahead because it gives me a chance to visit another country for my Adventures in African Literature project. Now all I have to do is to read this book by end of June.
I thought This Mournable Body was pretty good and I plan to read the two predecessor novels, though I haven’t bought them yet. I look forward to your review.
I wonder how you knowledge of the final book in the trilogy will affect your response to the first two. it’s an interesting question…
I completely agree with Kim’s comment. You have a good if a little difficult read ahead of you. But the other two definitely look worth reading too.
Difficult because of the subject matter or difficult because of the way it’s written?
Both, a little, as far as I remember. I read it quite a while back, and for some reason didn’t review it. I normally do this for my own benefit since I have a dreadful memory!
Me too. I never remember the names of the characters for instance
I’ve read Mournable Body… it definitely works as a standalone because I haven’t read the previous two… they were out of print at the time but have been reissued and they’re now sitting in my TBR. I thought Mournable Body very powerful. It’s a challenging read but it’s worth the effort. It really shows you how tough it can be to survive as a Black woman in Zimbabwe when you have no support network to fall back on. It’s a deeply affecting read.
I hadn’t realised until I saw Elle’s comment that this was part of a series. Thanks for the reassurance that I don’t have to read books 1 and 2 first ! You have me itching to get to this book now
Africa and broken dreams are almost synonyms. It reminds me a little of Season of Migration to the North. And things only got worse in Sudan after Tayeb Salih wrote this novel.
I’ve not come across Season of Migration but will make a note of that as a book I could look at when I need to find something from Sudan for my African reading project. Thanks for the tip
I’ve hard a bit about This Mournable Body, so I’ll be interested to see what you think. (I thought I had a copy of it, but no, I must have put it on a wishlist and then forgotten about it.)
I do that often too.
So, the Dangarembga is actually third in a series–the first is Nervous Conditions and the second is The Book of Not. I read them both a few summers ago for an African lit project. They’re very well-written, but the psychological and emotional turmoil of Tambudzai is pretty bleak; I found Nervous Conditions easier than The Book of Not, which was where I started to realise how deeply embedded this distress and sense of displacement was going to be in T’s life. This Mournable Body probably does work as a standalone, though I didn’t choose to read it and finish the trilogy.
Ah I didn’t know it was part of a series. It must work as a stand alone novel though otherwise I don’t think the Booker judging panel would have chosen it. At least I know going it into it that it will be bleak so thanks for that advisory 🙂
I’m sure it will work fine as a standalone—it was written quite a few years after The Book of Not so she must have felt the need to revisit the character. Will be very interested to see what you make of it, though.