Fiction, Poetry and Essay Reviews
A Ladder of Bones
by Bunmi Oyinsan
Guernica Editions
248 pages, $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-77849-008-8
The title of Bunmi Oyinsan’s latest novel, A Ladder of Bones, immediately warns readers that what is to come isn’t going to be pretty. Oyinsan, who lives in Nigeria and Canada, reveals the lives of characters who have been caught up in the on-going tragedies in various African locations, tragedies that have their roots deep in the past. Ultimately people’s success is built on the bones of others, often Africans.
The novel opens on Victoria Day in Halifax in 1997, and a young naked girl is found in the street. As she is brown, the onlookers assume she is a foreigner, and no one knows where she has come from. The most curious thing about her is that she appears to have two navels, and it’s thought that she may be reincarnated. Her name is Enilolobo, and according to Inin, a Yoruba attendant at the hospital, the name means “’The one who has gone has returned.’” Enilolobo is adopted by one of the doctors, and her background is discovered. She does have the ability to “remember” countless brutal experiences and speak in various languages, and when she is older, she decides she has to “unravel where she came from and how she came to be found on a street of Halifax. To be strung out metaphysically, to be tethered to a mystery.”
One of her first steps is to research “the relationship between the trans-Saharan trade and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” As Oyinsan develops her characters, she also provides education on a history whose effects are felt to this day. The novel expands from Enilolobo to several other children, whose lives have been shaped by power struggles, war, and poverty. Some are clearly different characters, and some may be other versions of Enilolobo. Accepting or rejecting the premise of reincarnation doesn’t matter as it’s the truth of the experiences that matter.
Another important character is Siaka, who experiences the destruction of his village in Sierra Leone. He and a small group of boys, including his little brother Bobo, escape the carnage as they were out in the cornfields. The boys struggle to survive. Their parents had also struggled to survive through job loss and subsequent marital discord, in part caused by decisions made by foreigners who own companies. But the boys’ new circumstances are beyond devastating, and they decide to join “an army. Any army! All soldiers were hunters, and all civilians prey.” As child-soldiers they are forced to do the unthinkable. Or die. Siaka’s story is by far the most moving in a novel full of heartbreak. Eventually he is rescued and handed over to UNICEF to be rehabilitated. He’s treated by a psychotherapist from Canada.
A Ladder of Bones carefully connects the rungs in the worldwide economic pyramid scheme. For some people to become obscenely rich, others must be beggared. The novel focusses on the devastation of various African peoples and communities. It shows the connections between the early slave trades and the relentless greed of capitalism. Even when the wealthy attempt to help, as in the case of a Canadian billionaire who has an extravagant home in Ile Ifa, a place where his mining interests generate him a fortune but which do little for the people, the help is mere window dressing.
Another gripping facet of the novel is the travel back and forth between North America and Africa. Siaka’s father, for example, believes his ancestors came from African settlements in Nova Scotia. In the end several characters find they don’t fit in any place. They have no home.
Parts of this novel are difficult to read because of the physical violence. But it’s the emotional or psychological violence that is really the foundational issue. When some people (largely because of their skin colour) are discounted as human beings, solely to fill another’s pockets, suffering on an unimaginable scale is made possible. Apart from the obvious solution of treating people better, the novel offers little hope. But education is definitely a starting point. And this book is a great place to begin.
We, the Kindling
by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
(Alchemy) Knopf Canada, 214 pages, $32.95
ISBN: 978-1-03-900928-8
After three acclaimed books of poetry, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek has published her debut novel, and it’s one of the most devastating books I’ve read in a long while. We, the Kindling is based on the kidnapping of children in Uganda by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Children were stolen from their schools and homes and forced to become soldiers or to serve the army in other ways. Girls were married off to old men to bear children.
Three girls are the main characters; Maggie, Helen, and Miriam are taken from their school. While a nun is able to argue for the return of 109 girls, thirty are marched off to spend years with the rebels. Okot Bitek weaves in the history of Uganda and how war has occurred since the ousting of Idi Amin in 1979. She shows the utter disruption of the country, its internal fights for power, and how children are the kindling—the small bits used to start fires and ultimately destroy.
Even though Maggie, Helen, and Miriam survive and finally escape the clutches of the rebels, their lives have been irrevocably changed. They’ve lost years. They have children. They see that their school companions who weren’t stolen have finished school, attended university, and gained good jobs. They suffer from the shame of their experiences even though they are victims.
Along with the historical events, Okot Bitek includes traditional stories, which are another form of education along with formal school. The first story is from the Baganda people who have a tale about a mother doing what she needs to do to protect her children. She tells her daughter not to open the door to anyone until she hears a particular song. An ogre tricks the girl into opening the door and eats her. The mother finds the ogre and makes him vomit up her daughter, thus showing the lengths to which a mother will go to save her child. The stolen girls try to protect their children, but sadly these mothers have not been protected.
When they attempt to return to what’s left of their former lives, too much has happened. They have missed so much, and they are different from the people around them. Miriam says, “I tell Helen not to live as if everybody knows what happened to us. And even if they think they do, they don’t. They only know what they think they imagine. They have no way of knowing what happened. We are the ones who know the ogre’s belly.” And the ogre—the men who stole these children—are brutal beyond belief, often wielding violence simply because they can. And they make the children participate. It’s a terrifying world, one that the children try to survive. But physical survival is only one kind.
Stylistically, it’s easy to see that Okot Bitek is a gifted poet. Her use of various languages and voices helps to tell the various stories. She often employs lists and anaphora to make her point. For example, she uses Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carry” as inspiration for what the children carry. The list goes on for pages and includes both the concrete objects carried (e.g., luggage, babies, food, AK-47s, sugar, salt) and the abstract (e.g., “thoughts of our families and the good times we’d known at home,” luck, guilt, hope. Lists of names (and sometimes how the names are changed) and ages show that children were abducted from many places.
It’s shocking how children are used as pawns in war, and yet it happens all the time. What We, the Kindling does so eloquently is explore the humanity of these children while their humanity is being denied and they are being treated as tools in senseless power struggles. Incidents of brutality are deeply disturbing, but the novel is much more than a series of awful events. It’s also a testament to human perseverance.
Celestina’s House
by Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez
Dundurn Press, 314 pages, $26.99
ISBN: 9781459754003
Clarissa Trinidad Gonzalez dives into her Filipino culture in her debut novel, Celestina’s House, which tells the story of Celestina Errantes’ search for happiness. Although the grand-daughter of a wealthy man, Celestina and her parents do not enjoy the luxurious lifestyles of her relatives. Her mother Stella is disinherited because she marries her art instructor, Antonio, instead of the wealthy man her father has selected.
But the Errantes family is not poor, at least not in material terms. Stella and Antonio’s marriage soon falters as the lust that formed the basis of their union wears off, in part because of Antonio’s drinking and infidelity. It’s evident almost immediately in the novel that Antonio is a creep of the lowest order: “He loved women, and he enjoyed the games they played, but they were most beguiling when they were on the cusp of maturity, not yet aware of the power they wielded over men. He understood why men risked jail sentences and madness to taste this delectable fruit.” Celestina is a beauty. She’s also smart and ambitious, but she is nearly destroyed by her father’s closeness and her mother’s distance.
How children are harmed by ineffectual or even evil parents is an underlying theme of the novel. Celestina confuses lust for love; consequently, she indulges in sex randomly simply to avoid being alone, or she fools herself by thinking that attraction and great sex will provide her with the sense of belonging she desperately desires. Given her upbringing, it’s a miracle she can function at all though, so readers are likely to feel sorry for her and wish her well.
Where the novel comes alive is in its display of Filipino culture. Gonzalez, who now lives in Toronto, makes Manila and its environs vibrant on the page. The country is complicated and has problems, but it is also physically gorgeous and has layers upon layers of traditions from the Filipino to the Catholic spirits that inform actions to the unbelievable variety of food to the multitudes of languages to popular culture. Celestina’s mother’s family, for example, is ethnically Chinese. Her father’s family appears to be of Spanish descent. Celestina speaks English, Hokkien, and Tagalog. The food is a blend of all the peoples that have inhabited the country. When Antonio takes Celestina to a restaurant, the narrator reports, “Like their country, the menu was a long-simmering cultural cocido—with continental European dishes like bouillabaisse, six kinds of paella with local produce, Chinese dishes bearing Spanish names, and regional dishes featuring ingredients such as cow’s blood and minced beef lungs sautéed in the holy trinity of garlic, onions, and tomatoes.” The novel made me want to learn more about the Philippines, its troubled, yet fascinating history and its amazing blend of traditions.
Apart from the Errantes family, one of the most important characters is Rio Orosa or Manang (term of respect for an older sister) Rio, a servant who becomes like part of the family and who takes care of Celestina. Even after death, Manang Rio keeps an eye on Celestina in the house she eventually is given by her grandfather Sebastian. Characters are haunted by their pasts and by the dead. Celestina’s house used to be her Great-Aunt Selena’s house, and the house is as much a character as the people who inhabit or visit it.
Overall the novel is engaging because of the glimpses into Filipino life but the characters are often a little out of focus as they are used to make points. Children are scarred emotionally and physically by parents driven by desire or adherence to beliefs. Characters try to follow or flout (as in the case of Celestina) accepted practices, but the novel feels overwritten or overwrought at times. However, given what happens, the high emotions may be appropriate. The conclusion, unfortunately, seems forced to me as Celestina retreats into a belief system that is the opposite of what she was pursuing as a free-thinking young woman.
The Road to Heaven
by Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson
Dundurn Press, 296 pages, $24.99
ISBN: 9781459753723
Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson’s debut novel, The Road to Heaven, takes readers to 1965 Toronto, when phones were in public booths and cost a dime, not carried around in people’s pockets. The narrator, Patrick Bird, is a would-be private detective, but his tendency to be his own worst enemy often gets in his way and keeps him from being the best version of himself possible.
Bird is tasked by his boss, Sid, to investigate the disappearance of sixteen-year-old Abbie Linklater. The job is a welcome change from his usual task of setting up philandering husbands to get evidence for a divorce. But right off the bat, it’s clear that the Linklater family is wildly dysfunctional and secretive. Trent Linklater, Abbie’s father, is an obnoxious bully who refuses to answer Bird’s questions. As Bird says to Trent, “I think if you have a real interest in getting your daughter back, you’d take the time to answer my questions. For all you know right now, you little girl could be greasing some guy up at a body-rub parlour on Yonge Street.” Readers are also wondering why Trent is so obstructive, the past of the Linklater family is the true mystery of the novel and has led to the present problems.
Abbie is not hard to find, but why she is on her own search to find about her family becomes Bird’s mission. Abbie and her twin brother, Nelson, live with their father and step-mother, Jane, and no one gets along. Trent’s first wife, Belinda, died when the children were two years old. Any information about the past has to be pried out of the Trent and Jane, so it’s no wonder that Abbie is trying to find out about her mother. As Trent refuses to involve the police in the search for Abbie, it’s evident that something is amiss.
The novel is peppered with references to real places in Toronto, and a reader unfamiliar with the city would benefit from looking at a map as it’s helpful to see where the action happens. Stefanovich-Thomson manages to show the so-called “Toronto the Good” by having characters regularly attend church, and one of Abbie’s friends is the son of a local Anglican minister. But no place is as good as its veneer, as demonstrated by the opening chapter in which Bird uses a woman to entice a married man into bed so he can take pictures of them.
The style of the mystery is mostly hard-boiled although Bird, while smart, is not a verbally proficient as one would hope, and all the characters, with the exception of Abbie, run from the annoying to the awful. It’s easy to understand why Abbie is trying to find out about her mother, who died in a botched bank robbery, as no one ever talks about her. And in an era without the internet, Abbie finds herself pouring through old newspapers in the public library, to alleviate or confirm her suspicion that her mother was murdered.
The tangle of nasty people gets sorted, but not before another body is found. Bird makes a dubious choice regarding Jane, and the seduction scene with the two of them is dubious at best and entirely ridiculous. The pull of sex is one of the drivers of the novel, and that’s certainly realistic, but as drawn in the novel is over-the-top.
The other driver of the novel, the formation and development of family, is also realistic, and while the events of the novel are possible, the lack of realistic characters makes the novel appear somewhat cartoony. But there are funny moments, and if Stefanovich-Thomson writes a sequel, maybe Bird will have matured a bit into a more thoughtful and controlled character. He has the instincts and drive to be a great detective. And the historical aspect of the novel is engaging.
