WALKING ON COWRIE SHELLS by Nana Nkweti

from April 1, 2021: Volume LXXXIX, No 7

DUST OFF THE BONES by Paul Howarth

pupils—imbue the awkward and borderline-unpleasant character with the charm of an earnest boob. What more could anyone be when faced with their place in the universe?

Gorgeous navel-gazing.

RAINBOW MILK

Mendez, Paul Doubleday (336 pp.) $26.95 | Jun. 8, 2021 978-0-385-54706-2

Troubled by religious traumas, a young gay Black man struggles to reconcile his racial and sexual identities. In the wake of 9/11, Jesse McCarthy is 19 and living in the British Midlands; his parents, who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, have dissuaded him from pursuing academic study, encouraging him instead to devote himself to the church. His mother, who’s first-generation Jamaican British, is depressed and blames Jesse for her travails; his stepfather is White and has mostly given up on attempting to nurture him. As tensions rise at home, Jesse—an active and beloved member of his church community—is summoned to speak with the preacher: Not only has he been caught drunk and high on marijuana, but he’s been accused of making a homoerotic remark to his close friend. Disfellowshipped from the church and thrown out of his house, Jesse moves to London with all the money he’s saved up from working at McDonald’s. Independent of his family and faith, he’s finally able to enjoy his sexual freedom. Eventually, after a brief and disastrous waiting gig, Jesse finds that he can support himself through sex work, though at an emotional cost. He yearns for the safety and comfort of a more permanent relationship. While compelling at times— especially when Jesse interrogates the nexus between his sexuality and Blackness—the novel sags with overwritten passages: long digressions into music, repetitive sex scenes, mundanities described in excessive detail. The pace drags, with key scenes lost in the midst of less significant ones. Structurally, the novel is confused and inconsistent. The events of the moving first section, about a Windrush generation Jamaican family immigrating to a brutally racist Britain in the early 1950s, don’t figure into the novel until the final quarter, when narrative threads about Jesse’s past are hastily (and messily) tied up.

Moving at times but not well executed.

GIRL ONE

Murphy, Sara Flannery MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (368 pp.) $27.00 | Jun. 1, 2021 978-0-374-60174-4

In her latest work of speculative fiction, the author of The Possessions (2017) creates a world in which women can conceive without men. Josephine Morrow’s mother has disappeared and the house where she spent most of her childhood has been set on fire. The source of the fire is unknown, and the only clues to Josephine’s mother Margaret Morrow’s whereabouts will send Josephine on a trip across the country and into her past—a past that Margaret has done her best to keep her daughter from investigating. Here is what Josie knows: She was born on the Homestead, a woman-only commune; she was the product of a virgin birth; and Dr. Joseph Bellanger helped her mother achieve parthenogenesis. As she searches for Margaret, Josie seeks out the other mothers who gave birth on the Homestead. She also reconnects with their daughters, a couple of whom join Josie on her journey. As these young women get to know each other, they discover that they all have superhuman abilities—telekinesis, controlling the minds of others, the power to heal. They also encounter a number of people who hate and fear them enough to want them dead. This is a difficult novel to categorize. It has science-fiction elements and its basic plot is that of a thriller, but it’s written in a style that is well suited to neither. Using first-person narration, Murphy spends a lot of time exploring Josie’s inner life, which is not nearly as interesting as her outer life. This novel also suffers from some serious plot holes. Josie and her companions assume that their powers are the result of parthenogenesis, but no one wonders why—like the X-Men or the Justice League—they each have a unique power. More importantly, Josie has devoted her life to replicating the work of Dr. Bellanger, but when she has the opportunity to ask those in a position to give her information about his techniques, she never asks any questions that might lead her to the truth. Some of the mysteries that drive the narrative are resolved, but its central secret remains a secret.

Full of intriguing ideas that are poorly developed.