It's been about two months since I finished this book but I needed that time to process exactly what I had just read and there you have it:
BRUTAL
Brutal is about all you really need to sum up Roxane Gay's superb, An Untamed State, but there are two parts to this book (Happily Ever After and Once Upon a Time) and two sides to the story, so if brutal is one, then love is the other.
Being the daughter of one of the richest men in Haiti, Mireille knows only one side of her native island, the side that money can buy, not that she's completely blind to the plight of her fellow Haitians, far from it, but living the life of luxury when she visits - she lives in Florida with her American husband and their first child - she is chauffeured from the airport straight to the house where high walls and big gates are guarded by men with guns, keeping the poor out and the family in relative safety and so the true desperation of the average Haitian can only really be guessed at.
Then, an innocent trip to the beach and Mireille's life changes forever.
This book doesn't hang about and it doesn't pull any punches either, firing you straight into the kidnapping like a smack around the face and it's all the better for it, and by throwing you straight in, it has you hooked from the first page, has you immediately questioning whether Mireille can escape, be rescued, or when the ransom will be paid, and then, a few chapters in and you're wondering how she can possibly take anymore, how she can possibly carry on (I said this book was brutal and it is, so don't say you haven't been warned) whether she will ever see her son again, and it has your emotions all over the place.
Reading the brutality in part one will make you angry, sick, scared, frightened and then some and you have to remember that this is a work of fiction, and as a work of fiction I feel that this book gets closer to what I can only imagine is a reality for some women then any other I have yet to read.
During her thirteen days in captivity, Mireille endures every depravity imaginable - I won't go into graphic detail here as my audience sometimes includes children - but the way Roxanne Gay writes just rips at your heart and you just know that if Mireille is ever released or ever manages to escape, her journey would have only just begun.
In part two, Gay explores what can only loosely be described as recovery and again she adds so much depth to her characters, not just Mireille but her husband, her sister, her unsuspected advocate, her mother-in-law - who she goes to stay with for many months - and her now estranged father.
Again, the writing here is just sublime and so believable, portraying just the simplest of tasks as being beyond Mireille’s ability but, with help and support, love, and subtle persuasion, a new journey begins.
Where it will take her is for you to find out but I can tell you one thing, it is totally worth spending your time trying.
Due to the subject matter and how graphically it is explored here, I think it would be odd to say that I enjoyed reading this book but it is absolutely superb and so I can highly recommend it to all who are brave enough to try.
Four and a half stars.
BRUTAL!
No comments:
Post a Comment