Book Review of Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
This is not the usual kind of book that I would have gone out to buy and read. The first question that came to mind when I started reading the book was, what happened to the “full stops”?
Well, this was the first time I read a book by Bernardine Evaristo.
There was a whole chapter with no full stop. The author adopted an unconventional way of writing. A quirky style, funny, engaging, and unusual. The author did backstories, without seemingly doing backstories. The flow from chapter to chapter was easy to follow and enjoy.
The book was like fifty years of the history of the LGBTQ movement rolled into 307 pages. It tried to capture the history, travails, struggle, emergence, acknowledgement, and acceptance of the LGBTQ movement in the UK.
The book was written mainly from the perspective of Mr. Barrington Walker, except for a few chapters by his wife, Carmel, which helped to balance the perspectives. This was necessary because Carmel was demonized from Barry’s perspective. Besides, the sections/ chapters that I enjoyed the most were that of Carmel.
Barry gave us insights into his thoughts/ head. Carmel gave us insights into her emotions/ heart.
The accent in the dialogue, especially that of Barry, flows like Pidgin English, but it’s actually Patois.
The sex scene/ affair between Carmel and Reuben Balaz is metaphorically intriguing. There was no mention of body parts or actual “sex actions,” but you pretty much could see it in your mind. The imagery in the book was expansive, and the description was very vivid. However, that particular section/ scene was on another level.
Morris, Barry’s friend, and lover, was a foil to the character of Barry, a lighter version. As per alternating perspective(s), it would have been interesting to see things from Morris’s perspective, as well as, Barry’s daughters, Donna and Maxine. The daughters were two different personalities, both of them weird and interesting in their contrasting sort of ways.
A fellow reader/classmate shared his thoughts based on the little insight we had into the daughters’ perspectives. He said, “this made me wonder as a parent about how much my daughters know about me, that I don’t know that they know.”
Well, I’m starting to wonder about my children too!
The only thing I had against the book is the conclusion.
It was not a bad conclusion. But it was “too happy” a conclusion. Yes, there were a few tragic happenings. But none of the main characters suffered a direct or personal tragedy, only minor characters that we were not emotionally invested in. Thus, it was “too happy” an ending because most of the main characters got what they wanted, and in the real world, there are no happy endings.
Signed
Olumide Holloway (King Olulu)
