Nelson's much-anticipated follow up to his debut novel “Open Water” follows a few formative summers in the life of Stephen, a young man making the uneasy transition from being a teenager to an adult. He leaves his beloved community in London for the first time to move to university and harbours complicated romantic feelings for a longtime female friend. He also has a knotty relationship with his parents. His father naturally wants a stable future for Stephen even if this runs contrary to his passions and this creates a lot of conflict between them. Meanwhile, he and his mother share a more straightforward free-flowing love exchanging memories while cooking together. It's highly relatable how the author describes the stumbling nature of this period of life where we struggle to understand who we are and what we really desire while testing the limits of our own agency. Nelson has a wonderful style of portraying the emotions wrapped up in this confusion and relating the interior process of his central character with such sensitivity. There are many heartbreaking and tender moments in the story informing Stephen's journey to more comfortably inhabiting his selfhood.
The novel's central metaphor of the sense of connectedness between groups of individuals is especially potent when considering the wider context of being black in modern day Britain. It's stated in the story that “we might build a small world, where we might feel beautiful, might feel free... outside of these spaces, we are rarely safe... the world was not built with us in mind, and that someone, at any time, might intrude upon our homes, crumbling our walls, making dust of our foundations. It's days like these which remind us that we don't have space, that the city feels like it's closing in, trying to magic us away, encouraging our disappearance.” Though they find comfort and security in their tight-knit community, Stephen and his friends are deeply affected by Mark Duggan's murder by the police in 2011. This historical incident makes them recall the extreme perilousness of their situation and sense of painful self-consciousness living in a largely white-dominated society. I was lucky enough to hear Nelson speak about this novel at Brixton Library and when discussing his earnest desire for his community to have safe spaces he was brought to tears. It's extremely moving how this desire is built into the story showing the pleasures and pains of creating such circles.
One of the most powerful aspects of the novel is how it relates Stephen's feelings of ambiguity about his faith, heritage and family. Though he's uncertain in his beliefs he finds such strength in attending church: “it doesn't feel like I'm playing but taking part in something spiritual, something I didn't know I needed.” Equally, he's drawn to visit his parents' birthplace of Ghana reconnecting with family there and his heritage. In these scenes Nelson conveys a wide-eyed wonder for the surprises his character discovers there as well as a sense of connectedness to aspects of the culture. It's especially effective how Ghanaian words are incorporated into the novel as it reflects how he and his family speak to one another but also Stephen's discomfort with the limitations of language: “I came to both languages through violence: the Ga I speak was warped and muted, many years ago, after British invasions, the same invasions which are the reason I speak English. Language, then, has always struck me as less tool than burden. It's always caught between somewhere, something always lost between expression and emotion.” Returning to his family's homeland also inspires a new sense of empathy for his father who he fell out with. The way the narrative voice shifts in the later part of the novel to reflect this understanding is very moving.
This novel is imbued with a lyrical quality with certain phrases and images which refrain throughout the story. It makes sense that the narrative would be structured like this because music and dance is such an integral part of Stephen's life. He's an aspiring musician and it's something which connects him with his community, family and heritage. However, the recurrence of some lines can at times seem like the author is stretching for profundity. The feeling which accompanies reading a novel is different from listening to music so it's not easy to fit this sensation into a narrative. Also, Nelson has a tendency to over-explain and psychoanalyse his characters in a way which isn't always necessary when physical detail and dialogue would feel more impactful. Certain scenes stand out in my memory more for the straightforward exchange taking place when all the attendant feelings are implicit within the situation. Nevertheless, there's a beauty and power to Nelson's use of language which is so original and moving. It's exciting how fiercely artistic he is in his photographic and filmmaking pursuits alongside writing fiction showing how these forms of expression can blend into and inform each other. I'm a committed fan.
