What I Read in May: Should We Fall Behind by Sharon Duggal
Overall rating: 8/10
Easy to read?: Easy/Medium/Difficult
Length: Short-Medium
Themes: xenophobia, discrimination, homelessness, family, relationships, humanity, identity, history, memory, empathy, pride, loss, trauma, grief, conflict, classism, love
Time period: present
We think we know someone until we get to know their stories.
The synopsis was beautifully written, aptly describing that this novel is about "the people who have somehow become invisible, and how their stories make them visible once more."
Sharon Duggal invites us into five characters' lives, surveying their present day and their memories. These characters vary in age, from young to old, and therefore have varied life experiences. Most of them are immigrants to Britain. Except one, who is homeless. All these characters are outcasts – whether due to their ethnicity, or their social standing.
Although there is a mystery that drives the plot forward, Duggal's work here is more of a character study: of how people appear to be on the surface, when society’s eye casts its gaze upon them and assigns labels upon them, and who they really are beneath that assumption.
Each individual story contains depth, texture, a deeper psychology and a shared experience of love, loss and trauma that connect all of them despite how different they are. It is then easy to understand how this informs their choices and behaviour in the present.
Although most of these characters have had their fair share of love and loss, the novel is hopeful in that they're not obstinately glued to their mindsets and situations. They grow and make small, simple steps to change and reach out in love.
This was a work of empathy and compassion that truly brought me deeper into myself as I was drawn to examine my own biases and prejudices, and instead, consider the humanity of another person.
Duggal's writing is easy to read. It was such a pleasant surprise to lift this off the shelves of my local library and finding such a gem of a book.
Drawing a scene from the book + quotes
“Surrounding him in the room were Ouriana’s clothes: dresses, blouses and cardigans, slacks and nightdresses spread out across the furniture with outstretched arms and flattened skirts. Getting rid of them was not an option. the week after she died she came to him in a dream in the blackest part of the night, wearing the yellow dress he liked best, dancing around the fig tree in the summer sun, beckoning him. Within the clothes were minute traces of her life, not just imperceptible flecks of skin or hair but moments they had shared together: their laughter, their sadness, tiny particles of grief and joy.”
“She thought about the clothes in the mud and the man returning to find them and wondered when she’d become so hard; when the scowl across her face had become so rigid. Deep down she knew it was a build-up of layer upon layer of her life’s hardships: disappointment lain across rejection lain across grief, stacked up, one on top of the other, stuck fast so even when she laughed the scowl was there.”
“He realised part of it was the way he looked directly into his eyes when he spoke. People stopped to throw coins sometimes. Others asked if he was alright but rarely stayed long enough to hear the words behind the answer. Some left shop-bought sandwiches or hot coffee, a woolly hat or an old coat. He was grateful for it all, it kept him alive, but no-one really looked him in the eye.”