Far From Brooklyn

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

I loved the writing of this book. The paragraphs are formed as free verse, each a single sentence long. Periods are not used. So the language has a kind of shifting, tidal power, drawing you along, in and out, as the sentences drift together and apart.

That said, the stories bobbing on top of this powerful tide were not, for me, terribly engaging or even believable. The novel struck me as a sort of candy-colored portrait of British BIPOC bohemia.

But the writing — whoa. I’m really not sure I’ve read such a distinct voice since Anne Carson. And similarly it really has to do with her creative non-use of traditional punctuation. Like Carson, Evaristo manages to make sentences breathe and sway without resorting to commas, dashes, periods, etc., or least not resorting to them very often. I wish I could say I liked this novel more.

Photo credit: Diane Picchiottino
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