Gravel Heart
“Gravel Heart is a look at an era and a culture that’s not often showcased in the literary world.”
Abdulrazzak Gurnah is no stranger to the literary world. As the author of seven novels, a professor of English, and one of the 2016 judges of the Man Booker Prize, he is an expert storyteller. Nevertheless his new novel Gravel Heart is a curious endeavor because it is written in almost a memoir style. Readers may wonder if this is his own story or the story of someone the author knows. They may also feel less than enthused about the writing style, which is reserved and almost impartial.
If there is a perceived disconnect in the words, it is another aspect of expert storytelling. Gurnah has written something special in a way that’s also unique. The main character is Salim, a young boy growing up in the 1970s in Zanzibar. He tells of a home that’s struck apart by an unknown discord: His father moves out, and his mother’s relationship with an unknown and powerful man is slowly revealed. Salim is angry and unappreciated, yet we learn about him and his family through the distant words of the storyteller Gurnah rather than Salim himself.
The first part of the novel is Salim’s uncertain and increasingly furious childhood. The young boy spends his time reading and tries unsuccessfully to build some sort of relationship with his father. Growing up is a process filled with uncertainty and fear: “When I moved into my own room, I did not like to shut the door on myself. I was so alone in there. A small window high on the outside wall overlooked the lane but I did not leave it open at night because then the darkness surged in and filled me with fear.”
Soon his uncle Amir offers Salim an opportunity of a lifetime: to study in London. This becomes part two of the novel, a new life for Salim that is as difficult as it is unexpected. Uncle Amir and his family are not the lovely people he has hoped for, nor does he enjoy his studies or even the climate of his new country. Failing in both academic and personal fronts, Salim decides to leave Uncle Amir’s house and chart off on his own journey.
Readers will get a glimpse of the harsh student immigrant life in London in the 1970s and ’80s. “I learned to live in London, to avoid being intimidated by crowds and by rudeness, to avoid curiosity, not to feel desolate at hostile stares and to walk purposefully wherever I went. I learned to live with the cold and the dirt, and to evade the angry students at college with their swagger and their sense of grievance and their expectations of failure. I learned to live with the chaotic languages of London, which did not speak to each other, and to cope with English that was broken and wrong, missing articles or in the wrong tense.”
Part Three of the book describes Salim’s return to Zanzibar. Along with Salim, readers finally learn about the scandal that drove Salim’s father out of the house and destroyed their family life. It does not come as the shocking end to a thriller but as a quiet understanding of human failings. Salim and his anger are revealed, his father’s misery is explained, and the corrupt intricacies of public and private life in Zanzibar are painted in all their ugliness.
Gurnah’s style of writing may not be for everyone, but in this novel it is the best method of telling a story within a story. There are many layers, many characters, and many decades to unwrap. The tone is almost conversational, and we can nearly envision a man sitting down in his old age and telling his story. Gravel Heart is a look at an era and a culture that’s not often showcased in the literary world.