librarytart

Abani, Chris ~ Becoming Abigail

When I selected this book I thought
Who on earth writes novellas? What is a novella? A book that didn’t get a deadline extension? Oh, okay, I’ll borrow the bloody thing because it doesn’t weigh a lot. I took the book to skim while waiting for a vegetarian mee goreng at the noodle bar – the 10-minute wait was two hours too short because I fell immediately into Abigail’s world and wasn’t ready to leave when number 14 was called. I ate my words instead of lunch.

50-word description
Abigail is a Nigerian girl raised by her father in the constant shadow of her dead mother. As a teenager she is sent to live with relatives in London so her father can live without the growing reminder of the woman he lost, while Abigail deals with her own ghosts of sexual abuse and enforced prostitution while searching for identity and fleeting moments of doomed affection.

150-word review
Abigail’s story could never end happily and Chris Abani handles the portrayal of her brutalised existence with a compassionate and kind touch. Confronting episodes such as Abigail’s dehumanisation when she is relocated to London and her subsequent revenge are overdramatic in isolation but fit within the quiet telling of the other traumas she faces.

The narrative steps between the present and the past to layer the foundations of Abigail’s hopeless situation. I re-read the book as soon as I finished so I could linger over the prose, and found a beautiful trick of construction that the book’s ending and beginning form a perfect circle of sequence. Abigail keeps track of her own story by marking her body to preserve memories and moments with burns and cuts.

I have a crush on poets who write books and he has added himself to my love list alongside Margaret Atwood and Michel Houellebecq.

chris abani ~ becoming abigail

Found in
Fiction A

Borrowed
Oct 08

Author link:
Chris Abani web site

Rating
Magnificent

This is book 1 of the project.