Small Worlds

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Small Worlds, the second novel from Caleb Azumah Nelson, is equally as lyrical and poignant as his Costa Prize-winning debut—but those who struggled with Open Water’s second-person perspective may find this first-person narrative a much more readable offering. Nelson returns to South London for three consecutive summers in this emotive exploration of the shaky, uncertain period between adolescence and adulthood, dropping in on Stephen just before prom night in 2010. He is hanging his future hopes on a girl—Adeline, his best friend—jazz, and the music school experience that will mean their burgeoning romance need not be tested by distance and separation. True love’s course is rarely that simple, however, and Stephen’s struggle to carve out a new path when the one he intended to tread comes to an abrupt dead end makes for tender, empathetic reading. His relationship with his father—a first-generation immigrant from Ghana—is key to the conflict Stephen endures as he grows from boy to man, and Nelson renders the cultural gulf between the parents who denied themselves a carefree young adulthood of their own in order to work hard and secure their futures, and the children who know nothing of these experiences, in typically elegant fashion. Even with a backdrop of creeping gentrification, systemic racism and bereavement, Small Worlds is lighter fare than its predecessor and its refreshing to spend time with characters who have not yet seen enough of the world to be hardened and jaded by it just yet. Beautifully, masterfully written.