Reading the World discussion

Written by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

"A mythic love story set in Trinidad and Tobago, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.

You were never the smartest child, but even you should know that when a dead woman offers you a cigarette, the polite thing to do would be to take it. Especially when that dead woman is your mother.

The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny.

Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and immersive lyricism, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal."

Looking forward to the discussions on this selection.

For anyone who doesn't have the book yet, the eBook from both Barnes & Noble and Amazon are currently $4.99.

Thank you Gail for adding this information. I did update the bookshelf.

I just finished it and thought it was fairly good. Writing in dialect made it seem vivid, real, if that makes sense? As far as the plot and characters, just so-so. More later after y'all read it.

Thanks K

I very much liked the emotional tone of the book; the way the author captures a sense of the cultural hauntings in Trinidad and Tobago. The emotional reactions of the characters seemed grounded even though what was happening to them had no grounding at all in this life. The combination of the ghost story, which does not come across as metaphorical but rather as a true walking dead story, with some of the vocal song of the islands really allowed me to get a sense of this place I have never been. I thought it was well written. However,I didn't quite think that the author pulled off the balance of the positive / negative side of living with the dead. The plot didn't quite coalesce for me. I did like the fact that it was the women in the "line" that were powerful.

K wrote: "I just finished it and thought it was fairly good. Writing in dialect made it seem vivid, real, if that makes sense? As far as the plot and characters, just so-so. More later after y'all read it."

I finally have been able to start this (absolute killer of a month at work-I've only read one book so far this month!) but I find I am automatically adjusting the words in dialect and losing the whole effect. I hate to stop reading it, I'm afraid I may never get back to it, but this definitely is not the right time for me to be reading it properly. Ugh!

I decided to not read this. When I read that it was pure fiction and fantasy, I opted for a different book.

My choice: Miguel Street V.S. Naipaul

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...