This is the kind of book I enjoy, very beautiful but also quite brutal. You get a peak at the lives of a wide variety of people related to the slummisThis is the kind of book I enjoy, very beautiful but also quite brutal. You get a peak at the lives of a wide variety of people related to the slummish community of Augustown outside of Kingston, told partially as an oral story. You get an extremely diverse set of people, who each represent a different kind of relationship with the community. A blind matriarch Ma Taffy, who's grown there all her life and has experienced the rise of violence, a smart teenager aspiring to leave for better places, a gang leader using the place as a hideout, a headmistress who feels she has to be a saviour for the community yet lives in a rich neighbourhood above them. It is just so interesting to see how they are all related, and how their ideas about colorism, classism and authority differ. I thought the writing was very beautiful at times, without being too stuffy, and there is plenty of down-to-earth dialogue, for example "To make a fool fuck you is one thing, but to make a fuck fool you is an even worse thing." Lots of golden nuggets like that. Also a lot of people claiming there are elements of magical realism in the novel. The author has rejected such claims, and I agree with him. There is not much magical realism, as the characters acknowledge when something extraordinary happens and it's not simply the status quo....more
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