This was an intense and evocative look into the Sri Lankan civil war from the perspective of one woman, whose life and family were torn apart by it.

The narrative takes a journalistic approach to storytelling, to the point that I felt I was reading a factual eye-witness account of the horrors of the past. Despite the first-person POV, the narrative is pointedly lacking in human emotion and reaction. The recounting of events is direct, so no facts or details are hidden or sugarcoated to protect the reader. This makes for a heavy read as things go from bad to worse, with little reprieve. These aren’t criticisms — in fact, I felt it was a deliberate and powerful choice to convey the story in this way. The narrator experiences unspeakable losses within her own family and witnesses many more atrocities of war. The only way she can tell the truth — which is her aim from the beginning — is to remove much of the heightened emotion she must be feeling.

There is less dialogue than I would expect to find in a novel, but the nature of the plot allows for it. I’m not sure this narrative style is necessarily for me, but it’s refreshing to read something different. I learned a lot about Sri Lanka’s recent history and politics which I found really interesting. The novel spans about 30 years, but follows the narrator and the decisions made by those around her, rather than taking a wider lens to the world at the time. It was particularly poignant then when the author brings in the United Nations towards the end of the novel — after so much ‘avoidable’ conflict and death, the UN’s ambivalence towards civilians’ lives was the final nail in the coffin of what was a horrific and drawn-out war. I was shocked to discover the conflict was still going on in 2009. An informative read if your history education was as white-washed and colonised as mine.

If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy Moth by Melody Razak for similar tone of voice and the depiction of war through one family's experience.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free e-arc in exchange for an honest review

TW: war, death, murder, child death, rape, violence, sexual violence, fire, blood/gore, injury detail, kidnapping, torture, genocide, grief, suicide, animal

I had heard this book would be amazing, and the people were not wrong! Even though I wouldn't say the pacing is fast, it's a book that slowly, but consistently, draws you into the story so that you just want to keep reading to see what'll happen next. Ganeshananthan's writing is thoughtful, reflective, and offers sophisticated examinations of emotions, motivations, and memory during a fraught period of Sri Lanka's history.

This story follows Sashikala as she studies for medical school before and during the Sri Lankan Civil War. I didn't know much about this conflict before reading this book, which is at once believable and unbelievable. The West didn't seem to be involved much, and it was horrible to see how most of the world ignored such a drawn-out, violent, and disastrous conflict. Through Sashi's eyes, Ganeshananthan underscores how unpredictable and complex the Civil War was. After reading such an evocative novel, I definitely want to pick up a longer nonfiction to read about the war—I feel as if I've just scratched the surface.

Ganeshananthan handles such a serious and dark subject matter so well, and also manages to deeply explore family, betrayal, and love. How a family can morph before your eyes, how a person grows up, how morals and visions of the future are tested—all during a period of intense trauma. This story is vast, but still feels deeply rooted in daily life. It felt immediate, yet reflective; tender, yet eviscerating.

I just loved this novel, and now I really want to go back and read Ganeshananthan's previous work, Love Marriage. Her writing is superb, and I want to immerse myself in it as much as possible!

Some quotes:

"I didn't know how old one needed to be to read the whole of a violent story. I didn't know if the whole of any violent story could be told." p13

"What can I tell you about being in the presence of such a warm person? No one looking at the sun thinks about how swiftly it can be eclipsed." p290

I couldn't put this down. It was incandescent. It was searing. It made my heart physically ache, and made me do a thousand searches for nonfiction follow-ups. I am 100% going to read Ganeshananthan's previous book. the writing for this just completely gripped me, and once I got going in earnest, it just snowballed. 

The family of the novel's protagonist Sashi is complex, and the book spends the entire time slowly unwinding the moral complexity of strongly held beliefs, and unravelling the word 'terrorist'. I was struck by the way Ganeshananthan made the entire cast of characters possible to understand, and you could see consistency of character even as motivation and ideologies changed. Truly can't wait to insist that everyone read this in 2023 and beyond. 

*Thanks to Random House, NetGalley for the ARC. Book release: 3 Jan 2023*