Stevie‘s review of The Book Of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka
Historical Literary Fiction published by Doubleday 19 Mar 20
One thing I enjoy in timeslip fiction is spotting the links between the different characters and settings. This book excelled at throwing me hints all the way through and then finally tying everything together towards the end. Narrated by the spirit of an enslaved woman who died in London’s docklands as she tried to make her way to freedom, the bulk of this story takes place in the latter part of the twentieth century, across three continents, following the lives of two main characters, as they slowly work their way from poverty to success and towards each other.
Michael is a teenager when his family is ripped apart by an unexpected act of violence. Trying to hold things together and to ensure that his younger sister is able to fulfill her dreams of becoming a doctor, even as he drops out of education, Michael finds himself caught up in the Brixton riots and witnesses police racism and brutality for the first time. Following both Michael and Marcia, alongside our narrator we see a wide range of different lives of black Londoners, as they struggle to better themselves, and for the most part succeed,
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, our narrator is watching over another impoverished youngster, Ngazi. She moved to the city to work for a rich family, but also encounters unforeseen violence before making her way to England, where she takes on whatever work presents itself to her. Like Michael and his family, Ngazi also finds a way to make a success of her life, and her path and his eventually cross. Watching over them, our narrator mourns her lover, Wind, a freed African who tried to help her reach safety in England, and her two children: one left behind in Africa when she was first captured by slavers and the other snatched from her in England when she was recaptured for the final time.
Although I guessed early on how the various plot threads were likely to join up, the beauty of this book lay in the way the stories were told and in the deep insights we were given into the various characters’ lives and surroundings. It was also enlightening to be able to compare and contrast the experiences of the various characters and the ways in which their societies worked against them because of factors outside their control. Another author I shall be looking out for again in the future.
Grade: A
Summary:
Narrated by the soul of an African slave woman, who giving thanks at a shrine in Africa over two hundred years ago, tosses her infant son to safety moments before she is hauled away by slavers.
After a brutal sea passage, her baby girl is snatched steaming from her loins as she gives birth. Although she doesn’t know it yet, her spirit is destined to roam the earth in search of her lost children.
She will make her way to England where Michael is trying to stay out of trouble as riots spit and boil down the streets of South London, and all the way to a sun-baked village in Nigeria, where a servant girl named Ngozi struggles to escape her low-caste status.
As the invisible threads that draw her to these lives are pulled ever tighter, The Book of Echoes asks: how can we overcome the traumas of the past when they are woven, so inextricably, with the present? Humming with horror and beauty, Rosanna Amaka’s miraculous debut establishes her as a vibrant new voice in fiction.
Read an excerpt.
