Release Date: 15 April 2021 (received as advance read copy*)
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Star rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This book in 3 words: magic, senses, belonging
On this one sky day, there is infidelity to discover. On this one sky day, there is a wedding feast to prepare. On this one sky day, there is an addiction to fight, a message to paint and a storm brewing. There is a man with the power to imbue magic in his food. There are wings. Moths, butterflies. Wings not yet discovered. And there are people. Those on one side, and those on another, their eyes deep with nature and the history of a world that turned its back. And on this one sky day, when it rains, the world will begin again.
There are novels which, when read the first time, sink into our minds and assault our senses. They creep into our ears with their cacophonous sounds, their taste rests on our tongue and we can feel the sweetness in the air they emanate. This is such a novel. Leone Ross has created a novel which is unapologetic in its breadth and vigour. Never has so much happened in one day, never such a journey travelled. I already know I’ll read it again, if only to relive the beautiful moments woven here.
The way Ross creates the world of Popisho, from its customs, its magic, its cultures and its prejudices, is artful. This is a world which at once feels real and otherwordly, it’s characters at home in the earth and in the beyond. Dealing with issues of life and death, love and betrayal, hope and despair, beginnings and endings, the themes in this are expansive and left me mulling over my own feelings long after I put it down. And yet, unusually for me, I can also remember the tiny moments too – descriptions of hair, or of the way the sky looks. The handling of a moth in uncertain hands. It is rare for such small moments to stay with me after I’ve finished a novel, but these did.
This is a novel which is loud and beautifully so. It amplifies the voices of its characters and each one is so vivid I could see them. I’m doing this novel so little justice in writing about it like this because I can’t put into words how incredible it is. You should just read it. Read it, then come and talk to me about it.
Books in Steel City x
*Thanks NetGalley and Faber and Faber for allowing me free access to this advance read copy in exchange for an honest review!
Books in Steel City 