kab

2.5 Believably melodramatic until the absolute betrayal in “The Two”

I didn't expect so much patronising flattery and unscientific claptrap in the opening speech. Very little of this collection is agelessly thundering in exposing the crimes of imperialism, the prison walls of America, and the artifice of white liberal allyship.

Capably written single-formula stories that are casually fatphobic, ableist, dismissive of the other while centring another ‘other'.

The format of a page a day is superb, not overwhelming. The words are well-chosen, usefully balanced between not too common and not too obscure, but the paragraphs that are supposed to introduce the words in context are so awkward and unnatural.

Kerala and nearly all of the characters expand into three dimensions in a story that weaves between past and present and addresses class and patriarchal structures, colonialism, family dysfunction, and the beats of a butterfly's wing. It's cluttered however with poetic turns of phrase that founder and repeat and grow overshadowly wearisome.