Cambridge Edition October 2020 - Web

BOOK CLUB

THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI

who first identify the character’s otherness: “He should have known, Chika told himself as Kavita screamed in grief, Vivek clutched to her chest. He did know. How else could that scar have entered the world on flesh if it had not left in the first place? A thing cannot be in two places at once… this is how Vivek was born, after death and into grief.” This is a book about how something – someone – can be in two places, two states at once. In just a few sentences, the narrative can take us from soft, maternal delight at the young Vivek’s warm skin to brutal, bloodied grief at the wrapped corpse left on the family’s veranda. Some changes cannot be avoided: death is a part of life, but what happens to our true selves when we are forced to adjust, to alter our nature to make those around us more comfortable? Do we end up, like Vivek, feeling heavy our entire lives? “Like being dragged through concrete in circles, wet and setting concrete that dried with each rotation of my unwilling body. As a child, I was light… I slid through it and maybe it felt like a game, like I was just playing in mud… but then I got bigger and it started drying on me and eventually I turned into an uneven block, chipping and sparking on the hard ground, tearing off into painful chunks.” There is no escaping Vivek’s fate, but as with his grandmother’s passing, birth often follows on from death – if in an unexpected fashion. Tender and painfully raw in places, The Death of Vivek Oji is a book that will stay with you long after the sad conclusion that all of a sudden has been hiding in plain sight throughout.

BY AKWAEKE EMEZI Published at the end of the summer, this is the latest work from the Women’s Prize- longlisted writer Akawaeke Emezi, whose debut, Freshwater , was universally lauded. Like her previous novel, this new book deals with characters who seem to slip between worlds. As the title plainly states, Vivek Oji is dead, yet also seemingly not: the book slowly pieces together his life and the fallout from his death from the perspective of those closest to him, but Vivek also returns himself to add colour and life to these anecdotes, to rewrite the story from a different point of view. Born on the day of his grandmother’s death and bearing an identical birthmark to the family’s matriarch, Vivek is continually between states, raising questions of selfhood and identity from the very first moment we meet him. His absent father Chika and besotted-to-the-point-of- obsessed mother Kavita are the touchpoints

ABOVE A follow-up to The Stranger Diaries, Elly Griffiths’ new murder mystery is perfect for reading during those cold autumn evenings

THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS

BY ELLY GRIFFITHS The second novel featuring Elly’s detective DS Harbinder Kaur, this new tale follows on from The Stranger Diaries (which we featured back in Edition at the end of 2018 and is a treat of a teatime drama). The book features a clue-following collective of unlikely associates as they attempt to solve the apparent killing of an elderly resident of Shoreham who is revealed, post-mortem, to provide services as a ‘murder consultant’. The suspense-packed, pacy hunt leads the pack to a crime writers’ convention in Aberdeen, dips its toes in the murky world of Eastern European cryptocurrency, and deftly weaves in thoughtful asides on the modern plague of loneliness – caused in these characters’ cases by solitude, old age and not-being-from-around-here – which will resonate deeply with many readers following the long days of lockdown. Perfectly cosy winter reading that will leave you hoping for even more to come from Harbinder and her new set of friends.

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