Three Good Debuts to Start the Year With…

Reader. Dreamer. Writer.

I love mixed bags and these three debuts are very different from one another. While Braised Pork takes you to Tibet and Beijing, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line invites you to a slum where children keep disappearing. Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Ageis more of a ‘now-novel’, set in the age of social media and blogging. All three, needless to say, are promising reads and I am sure at least one would make its way to my best books of 2020.

BRAISED PORK BY AN YU

Wu Jia Jia is shocked to find that her husband has died (drowned? Suicide?) in the bath tub. He leaves behind a strange drawing—of a ‘fish-man’. She, being an artist, tries to recreate it but is unable to do so. And so she travels to Tibet to find the mystery of the fish-man and his connection (maybe) to her husband’s death.

The book set in Beijing night life and Tibetan high plains with ample dreams that tiptoe on magical realism, flows like water. Water finds its mention at several places in the book, sometimes as a direct word, sometimes alluded to. The novel alternates between philosophical, dreamy-storytelling and makes the reader reflect on what has happened to the characters. Was Jia Jia’s marriage one of convenience? Will her new found romance with the barman Leo—who describes her as ‘like water’— be a steady relationship or a rebound? Is she happy? We meet a Jia Jia who is visibly liberated through widowhood, free of chains of marriage to a non-encouraging (Chen Hang did not appreciate her art, he would make her feel self-conscious and cover up her birthmark while they have sex) husband and his demanding family.

The title comes from a meal Jia Jia shares with her estranged father. I love how the novel pulls the reader into the present—in this case to the father and his relationship with Jia Jia—and introduces a character who feels like a long-lost acquaintance. The act of sharing a meal, reliving memories of her favourite dish of braised pork puts into perspective so many missing pieces in the puzzle. This novel is not for those who crave a steady plot; it is reflective, meditative and contemplative. Braised Pork is about self discovery, being at peace with your past, navigating grief and moving forward. Best to surrender yourself to the prose and float in it.

Rating : 4/5

The best way to read BRAISED PORK by An Yu is to surrender to it, like how one would float on water. Set in Tibetian plains and Beijing night life, it is a novel about grief, loneliness and self discovery laced with hallucinations,… Click To Tweet

SUCH A FUN AGE BY KILEY REID

What fun! Such a Fun Age was everything I hoped it would be—breezy, entertaining and a good read. I am just so glad to see a book set in the present world where social media, internet and viral videos are a vital part of our lives.

Alix (rhymes with ‘leeks’) Chamberlain is high up on the social ladder. She is white, a kind-of famous blogger who asks for a lot of freebies (wine needed for an event? Write an email), a tight group of friends and money. Emira, her babysitter, is black, struggling for money but loves her job. When Emira is harassed in a super-white-grocery store because she is with two-year-old Briar. Emira’s boyfriend, Kelly—who was Alix’s (a time when she was plain Alex Murphy) high school boyfriend aka the guy who destroyed her heart—adds to the drama.

Most of the scenes are eye-rolling, ‘oh-no-what-is-she doing’ kind. By mid-book, I was completely sucked into the mess that Emira and Alix are in. There’s a white-saviour situation happening, and lots of phone snooping Add in secret videos, leaked videos and publicity stunts. There’s a fair amount to reflect on—How society views black and white people? Does Emira have a uniform or is it only a shirt that was kindly passed on to her by her employer? Why do white people want to save everyone? Are black friends kept by some white folks for societal status or are they really close to the heart? How easy is it for white people to get away with racism? I love how Reid kept all the grey in her characters, and made the narration unreliable. You stan a character and then go uh-uh-no-no. Alex and Kelly are so right about one another, and the reader’s views about them keep changing—it was exhilarating.

I did roll my eyes at Alix’s stereotypical depiction as a blogger who asks for freebies. I wish we could have a normal blogger in fiction one day. Or at least better researched versions of bloggers. Why are they always pictured as villainous, two dimensional, free loaders who don’t really do work and have so much free time? The blogging part of Alix’s life finds very little mention in the book, she is distracted with book deals and mom meet-ups, which is probably why it did not affect my connection with the character. Had Reid elaborated on Alix’s blog-work in a similar fashion, I might’ve enjoyed the book much lesser.

Rating : 4/5

Phone snooping, viral videos, free loading bloggers, white people mentality, race issues—Lots of grey in Kiley Reid's characters. SUCH A FUN AGE was a refreshing read to start the year with Click To Tweet

DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE BY DEEPA ANAPPARA

When I heard about this new, hyped debut novel set in a basti (slum), I wondered if it would be the 2020 Slumdog millionaire that would tick the diversity boxes for the publishing industry and nourish the Western audience’s hunger for poverty porn. I was glad it wasn’t. Slum life in Anappara’s basti is descriptive but not a building block for romanticization. Sure, there are community toilets that stink, cows with dried dung on their backsides chewing rotting vegetables, pigs splotched with dirt, dogs nosing through filth, children collecting cans and glass, men washing their backsides with a mug in public, monkeys perched on toilet complexes, flies, foul garbage, and overflowing gutters. But these aid the world building in this literary thriller of an investigation story, with a flavor of Blyton’s Famous Five series.

The choice of a child narrator in Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line proves to be powerful because it eliminates the superior gaze towards the characters that constitute the downtrodden masses. Akin to the narrators in Emma Donoghue’s Room and Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, the reader innocently crashes into bigger problems—threats of destruction of households by the rich, insensitivity of ‘hi-fi’ madams to the domestic labourers, alcoholism, abusive parenthood, gossips about women’s character if she tries not to be limited by the societal codes of keeping up appearances and the constantly brewing Hindu-Muslim disharmony.

Nine-year-old Jai, our narrator, lives with his parents and sister, Runu-didi. Children in the basti start disappearing and three friends—the reality cop TV enthusiast Jai, the studious Pari and the hardworking Faiz (doubling as a spy who tails suspects) are determined to find their friend Bahadur. Faiz is certain, and Jai fears that the children are snatched by evil djinns while Pari believes there is a logical explanation to the rising number of disappearances.

The Indian-English generously splayed—‘side-by-side’, ‘su-su’, ‘mood off’—accentuates the authenticity of the novel. Its strengths lie in effective narration through the eyes of children, humour and realistic storytelling. The mythical attributes—djinns meet-ups, ghosts, a woman ghost who protects young girls—are sparsely mentioned that often they feel out of place and under developed. I had expected more magic! However, I felt invested in the characters and also saddened at the grave reality of missing children (which inspired this novel; Anappara mentions that 180 children go missing in India every day). The ending broke me.

Rating : 4/5

The new literary thriller DJINN PATROL ON THE PURPLE LINE has a flavour of Blyton's Famous Five series. Three school kids investigate their missing friend—djinns, clues, and disappearing children—in this debut. Click To Tweet

Disclaimer : Much thanks to Grove Atlantic (Braised Pork), Putnam (Such a Fun Age), Vintage (Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line) for the ARCs. All opinions are my own.