What is it that drives a woman to commit the most unforgivable crime? Love, loss, sexual abuse, diaspora, trauma, dissociation, author Nayomi Munaweera takes a variety of hard-to-handle themes and weaves them into a complex and rich narrative. When she opens with the story of the bear that kills her cub rather than see it suffer, it is a premonition of things to come. And yet, when it comes, it hits hard.
The (unnamed until the end) narrator is a young girl growing up in Sri Lanka, the only daughter of a loving father and a disconnected mother. A victim of sexual abuse, she lives in terror of her abuser, unnoticed by her preoccupied parents.
Her father dies soon after, and she and her mother move to the US, to live with extended family, leaving behind the trauma of abuse. Or so she thinks, until she finds herself unable to build an intimate relationship with anyone.
Then Daniel comes along and she falls in love, and they build a home and a family. She thinks she has healed, until tragedy strikes once again.
Munaweera’s layered story is set in the midst of a tropical, lush Sri Lanka—an unbeatable combination. Her language is simple but riveting. Her view of the tragedy is humane and she unravels the complexity of human nature in a book that is both timeless and intimate.
The denouement is unexpected until you realise how cautiously and deftly she led you away from it.
A haunting exploration of the plurality of the mother and child relationship, it stays with you long after you shut the book and moved on. You will not be disappointed.