“Artful Scenes from a Troubled Childhood” would be the too on-the-nose title for this episodic and poetic work, and I wouldn’t recommend the change. It would however at least have the merit of describing the dichotomy between the lovely style and the disquieting subject matter of Mona Arshi’s debut novel, now longlisted for the 2022 best UK/Irish small press award, given by the Republic of Consciousness.

Ruby, growing up in London with parents who immigrated from India, does not speak. The novel’s opening prose-poem both informs the reader of this fact and brings us right into its style: “a blue bird escapes from her mouth. Then another and another, until the room is filled with their iridescent turquoise feathers and clamour of yellow-black beaks. A few settle on her head, others perch on her shoulders, but then after a few minutes and for no discernible reason they quickly flit back inside – a hymn of bodies returning as they enter back through her parted lips. Several fly into and penetrate her torso. When the last bird has gone, she closes her mouth and leaves the room.”

“No discernible reason” may put the cause of Ruby’s silence a bit strongly. There is racism from adults and children both, dehumanizing its target. Probably even more damaging in her youngest years is the fact that her mother suffers from mental illness and depression. Frequently hospitalized, and not a reliable source of comfort when not, her mother’s absences and pained presences greatly affect Ruby.

When I first heard the word agony from the mouth of my mother I was halfway up the stairs and it had escaped from underneath my parents’ bedroom door. It was as if some unknown force had passed me on the staircase; I felt winded and had to quickly grab hold of the bannister to steady myself.
Of all the ‘a’ words, agony is the worst. I wouldn’t wish that word on my greatest enemy. I wasn’t even that sure what the word meant but it was clear to me there was a sliver of glass in the middle of the brittle ‘o’. Agony was the point of no return, no greater anguish could befall you when reached it, and there was no coming back from the edge of its abyss – which was another ‘a’ word.

If the use of language offers no comfort, there is the more primal sense of touch, and Ruby does lean on this. For one episode of time as a child she writes words on her skin, and has her friend David write her words for her: “I would stretch the skin on my torso taut as canvas on a frame and he would feed the tip of the pen and copy the patterns and the curlicued script and when his mouth was very near my navel I would touch the top of his hair lightly with my hand.” As a teenager, she seeks communication with another friend this way as well: “I move carefully towards her and lay myself down on her still body and she strokes my hair and we stay like this for a long time. I couldn’t conceive of anything better in the universe than lying on her lovely body like this her heart fluttering underneath mine our fingers threaded together, our breath as fast as kittens.”

The novel offers no resolution or solution. The episodes, up to last (“They had taken her out of bed, and she was waiting for us patiently, her elbows scrubbed but dry with a bubbly texture. I reached over and touched one with my fingertips”), continue the general state of affairs until simply stopping to be told. If this were a plot-driven novel that might be a problem, but then, it’s not. It’s a poem-driven novel, with a voiceless notable voice. ( )

Protagonist Ruby is born to a mother with mental illness. The storyline follows Ruby’s life with her family, especially her relationship with her two sisters. Ruby does not speak. It is a lyrically written novella. It felt a bit rushed, and there are few explanations for the characters’ motivations, so some of their actions are puzzling. I liked it enough to read another book by this author. ( )

I got this book as part of “and other stories”, a literary press, yearly subscription. I knew what I was getting into. On the one hand, the writing in this book is beautiful and moving. On the other hand, the narrative suffers from one of my pet peeves: the author gratuitously uses the ugly parts of life (in this case violence, rape, mental illness and death) to manipulate our emotions. Even the main character’s refusal to talk seemed gratuitous and made her even more unlikeable.

I debated whether to remove one star or two for this failure to create a naturally compelling narrative. In the end, I related to each little chapter as an independent poem story, and that made the book work for me. I greatly enjoyed reading it. ( )