Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
“For the sisters & the sistas & the sistahs & the sistren & the women & the womxn & the wimmin & the womyn & our brethren & our bredrin & our brothers & our bruvs & our men & our mandem & the LGBTQI+ members of the human family.” (Dedication)
The many voices this novel is dedicated to parallel the many voices represented by its cast of British, Black characters. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo sheds light on the challenge of navigating identity- cultural, racial, familial, and sexual through 12 characters. Each chapter fleshes out another character, but they are interconnected through the common thread of Amma, the lesbian playwright whose work, The Last Amazon of Dahomey, opens and closes the novel.
Everything about Evaristo’s work plays to the idea of hybridized identity. Amma wages her war against “the establishment,” but from the opening page finds herself participating in what she once heckled- the traditional, elite venues of privileged society. The National Theatre in London is a far cry from her Bush Women Theatre motto of “...be[ing] a voice in theatre where there was silence” (14).Carole, the wizard of finance and graduate of Oxford, works to maintain her classy, put-together image as a counterpoint to her inner child of an immigrant who cleans houses. Dominique, an empowered Woman’s Arts Festival organizer and society rebel, berates herself for becoming a domestic abuse victim afraid to leave. They are all different, experiencing different struggles and yet they are all pushing back against the binary definitions of identity in a patriarchal society. In an interview with The New York Times reporter, Concepción de León, Evaristo discussed her inspiration for her approach to developing the characters, “It was an effort, she said, to show through these women, ‘We are all things and everything. You cannot dismiss us, nor can you easily define us.’”
This concept of hybridization is not left to just the characters. In an interview with Anita Sethi for The Guardian, Evaristo described her writing as fusion fiction, “...the absence of full stops, the long sentences. The form is very free-flowing and it allowed me to be inside the characters’ heads and go all over the place – the past, the present...There’s a part of me that is always oppositional to convention – not only counter-cultural and disruptive of people’s expectations of me, but also of form. That goes back to my theatre days, when we would write very experimentally, as we did not want to, as we saw it, imprison our creativity in traditional forms.” As a reader, I loved the mix of poetry and prose. Lines were enjambed. Punctuation was sparse. Capitalization was optional. Line breaks gave breathing space. It was a feast for the senses. The disruption of convention stylistically mirrored the disruption of society each character gave voice to. I felt richer for having experienced such deft melding of style and substance.
Ironically, the theme of duality continued into the awards circles. The 2019 Booker Prize was given to not one, but two novels: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Both women are known for their feminist narratives and challenge to political ideology. I am a voracious reader of Atwood, but this is my first foray into Evaristo. Her weaving of immigrant stories into an intergenerational narrative brought into focus a view of not only Modern British Society not often seen, but also the legacy of colonialism still existent in Black British families. Evaristo is now the first black woman to ever win the prestigious Booker Prize.
This novel is not a light read. The style itself is not what you normally associate with long fiction. There are moments that are difficult to read. The gang rape of Carole was brutal. Shirley’s disillusionment with public education rang true for me as a former teacher. Amma’s dissatisfaction with being typecast as a slave because she is black is frustrating. Dominique’s struggle to break the cycle of domestic abuse was familiar to me, a child of a social worker. It also brought stories of mothers and daughters across the spectrum. In many ways it was a love letter to the women in our life that acknowledges the struggles many women face.
Girl, Woman, Other complicated my own definitions of race, sexuality, and class. It made me consider my own status as privileged, white, and heterosexual. But, I think that is the point of great novels. Complacency is easy. Questioning is not. This novel asked me to remember I don’t know the whole story and brought the idea of othered/outsider to the front of the conversation. We all exist as a part of the larger story of humanity, but also as our own unique individuals- messy and imperfect. Reading about people from different places and different paths than us, breeds empathy for what we may not know in our daily lives. Girl, Woman, Other offers a window into some of the ways it is to be Black, British, Women. Fittingly, the novel ends with these words,
“this is about being together” (452).
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
2019. 464 pages
About Carrie Honaker
Carrie Honaker is a writer currently based in Panama City Beach, Florida. She studied Literature at Florida State University, but has worn many hats including restaurateur and teacher. Carrie is a voracious reader and kitchen sorcery addict who found her inner writer at the Blue Ridge Writing Project in 2010. Most days you can find her plowing through a book, writing or dabbling with a new recipe.
Carrie’s work has appeared in ALCA Lines, Virginia English Journal, and Digital Is. She also regularly writes about experiences in the classroom, moments in the kitchen, and all things travel & restaurants on her site, StrawbabiesandChocolateBeer.com. Currently, she is revising her foodoir about life growing up on a farm in Vermont interspersed with family recipes. You can find her on Twitter: @writeonhonaker, Instagram: @corkdorkva, on Goodreads & Trip Advisor.
