Reviews

Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden

poojapillai's review

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5.0

There is so much insight in this book - into the nature of marriage, it's many joys and perils, the burden of parenthood, the influence of race and culture. Most of us like to pretend that marriages fall apart because of major issues like infidelity or domestic violence, whereas the smallest things can sometimes hurtle an other stable marriage on the road to destruction.
There really isn't much of a plot: Amal and Claud have been trying for a baby, but Claud miscarries. This precipitates a crisis in their marriage. The events are narrated through Amal's perspective as he tries to comfort his wife while also dealing with his own pain. In the duration of 12 hours we see him swinging from anger to bewilderment to hope to resignation. This is a sharply observed and sensitively written novel.

kjcharles's review

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Holy crap this was good. I have been putting it off because it sounded honestly kind of depressing, but really. So good. I am writing this with blurry vision from sniffling.

It's about a couple at their lowest ebb, hurting themselves and each other, and about the experience of endless microaggressions and cultural clash and masculinity and how toxic it gets, and parenthood and the unacknowledged devastation of early miscarriage, all of which sounds terribly like a massive downer. but it really isn't. In the end it's a book about humans trying to keep a spark of light and decency and the ending is the most perfect thing.

Absolutely loved it. Wonderful unflinching characterisation. Hugely recommended.
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