Brother
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"A brilliant, powerful elegy from a living brother to a lost one, yet pulsing with rhythm, and beating with life." --Marlon James
"Highly recommend Brother by David Chariandy--concise and intense, elegiac short novel of devastation and hope." --Joyce Carol Oates, via Twitter
WINNER--Toronto Book Award
WINNER--Rogers' Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
WINNER--Ethel Wilson Prize for Fiction
In luminous, incisive prose, a startling new literary talent explores masculinity, race, and sexuality against a backdrop of simmering violence during the summer of 1991.
One sweltering summer in the Park, a housing complex outside of Toronto, Michael and Francis are coming of age and learning to stomach the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry. While their Trinidadian single mother works double, sometimes triple shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise of their adopted home, Francis helps the days pass by inventing games and challenges, bringing Michael to his crew's barbershop hangout, and leading escapes into the cool air of the Rouge Valley, a scar of green wilderness where they are free to imagine better lives for themselves.
Propelled by the beats and styles of hip hop, Francis dreams of a future in music. Michael's dreams are of Aisha, the smartest girl in their high school whose own eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. But the bright hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting, and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow.
Honest and insightful in its portrayal of kinship, community, and lives cut short, David Chariandy's Brother is an emotional tour de force that marks the arrival of a stunning new literary voice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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,' " 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 reality gang 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.
