David Chariandy (2017) Brother. 

I watched the film and now I’ve read the book. With few exceptions such as Ben Hur, books are better. David Chariandy’s slim novel won a slew of awards. And rightly so. It’s beautifully written.

You’d imagine the screen adaptation to be pretty simple. Opening page. Michael and Francis. Opening scene. Michael and Francis.

‘Once he showed me his place in the sky. The hydro pole in the parking lot all weed-broke and abandoned. Looking up you’d see the dangers of the climb. The feeder lines on insulators, the wired bucket called pole pig, the footholds rusted bad…’

Scarsborough. The ghetto neighbourhood that confused me when I watched the film because I thought it was America. Canadian high-rise towers full of immigrants trying to get by and trying to make a living. None more so than their mother who had come from Trinidad, West Indies. Refusing all talk of welfare. She worked and worked and worked. Long hours. Two, three, four, long bus journeys. Michael told to watch out of Francis. Christmas cancelled, until she can get more overtime.

A long list of things not to do. Michael a year older but a whole lot wiser. He could read his mum, read the neighbourhood and had a precocious talent for being the right side of cool.

Francis never had that. He lived in Michael’s shadow. Followed in his footsteps. Was tolerated rather than welcomed. But then he found Aisha or Aisha found him.

Michael was the tough kid. The cool kid, ironically, girls lusted after and tried to win.

Aisha was the kind of success story every immigrant parent could be proud of—hardworking, dedicated, and a scholarship girl that had her pick of the colleges and universities. Her dad had been a school teacher, but that was before. As an immigrant he was lucky enough to find a job as a security guard in the local mall.

Francis found a similar dead-end job, minimal wage, precariat. Whether that was after, before or during the fall is part of the structure of the book. Michael is destined to fly too close to the sun. Their brittle certainties broken as their mum clings to the past in which Michael soared. Found the language of music and a kind of love that dare not speak its name with Jelly, who brought it all alive with his turntables and soundtracks. They were going to make it big.  

A satisfying book (and movie). Read on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6