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Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year He just knocked, that was all, knocked at the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since the night I'd killed my mother hadn't happened at all...A" Crushed by an impossible shame, Jinx's life has been little more than a shell; estranged from her husband, she is even relieved when he takes her young son with him. When Lemon, an old friend of her mother's, turns up on her doorstep, Jinx is forced to confront her past, and with the pain of remembrance comes the possibility of redemption. But Lemon has his own secrets to share, and together they unravel an unforgettable family drama, stoked with violence and passion. Rich with voices from East London and the West Indies, Edwards's narrative is delivered with a unique and uncompromising bite that announces a new talent in British fiction.… (more)
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The story is authentic, bearing all of the textbook markings of domestic abuse: role reversal; sympathy for the abuser; shame; secrecy; conciliatory gifts; and the yearning for order, for something to exist, however small, that is in the realm of one’s control. Yet Edwards is triumphant in making the story deeply personal. A Cupboard Full of Coats is a story that needs to be told, and told again. A worthy read and impressive debut novel.
“It was like someone had shaken everything out of her, every ounce of hope, every decent memory, everything good she’d kept stored inside, and left in its place a sack, one that could still be shifted from place to place, propped up, made to lie flat, but no matter how hard I searched, was empty inside.” (Ch 5)
When Berris, Jinx's stepfather is released from prison,
Cubboard of Coats is a wrenchingly honest and gritty look at domestic abuse and its far reaching impact on family and friends.I found it to be a compelling and insightful read. Initially I was concerned that the subject matter might be too dark, but I quickly found myself totally immersed in the tale.
Cupboard of Coats never wallows in cliches, nor does it resort to stereotypes. A sad but ultimately redeeming read, not to be missed.
4.5 stars.
A Cupboard Full of Coats is an intense and gripping debut novel which was an interesting selection for the Booker Prize longlist. I don't expect it to be selected for this year's shortlist, as it lacks the rich character development and complexity of the typical Booker fare. However, this being a far from typical year for the prize, I wouldn't be completely surprised if it does appear amongst the six finalists.
Edwards begins her book by making Jinx, the narrator, unsympathetic and then works forward to make her actions and thoughts understandable. This is an uncomfortable book, with its theme of domestic violence tied to the coming of age of a teenage girl. Jinx may have made her home as clean and uncluttered as possible, but as Lemon cooks for her, her house fills with the tastes and aromas of her childhood, as the only child of an emigre from Montserrat, and with that the memories of when her mother fell in love with the wrong man.
Domestic violence is not an original topic; it has been covered in many books and movies. But Edwards has taken the ordinary and made it extraordinary. There is much about the book that is wonderful. The characters are complex and utterly believable. It is richly atmospheric with the culture and dialect of both the West Indies and East London. And perhaps what is most remarkable is the structure the author uses.
The story slips back and forth in time, with nothing in the past or in the present quite making sense, but slowly unraveling, slowly revealing, until it is fully told. It is mysterious and tense and laden with emotion. And when the author explains the cupboard full of coats of the title, it is rich with symbolism and heartbreakingly perfect.
Amazingly, “A Cupboard Full of Coats” is the author’s debut novel. She is a remarkable talent and wholly deserving of the Booker nomination.
Jinx has spent the past fourteen years blaming herself for her mother's violent death. She is so full of guilt and anger at the situation that she is completely emotionally frozen, unable to connect even to her young son Ben. Her husband Red moved out with Ben when he was just a baby and Jinx hasn't been able to repair the relationship either with Red or with Ben because she is so trapped by her feeling of culpability. So she lives a lonely and unfulfilled life. But when Lemon shows up on her doorstep, he starts to thaw her just by his very presence, forcing her to remember that terrible night and what led up to it.
Inviting him to stay, Jinx is afraid to re-open herself emotionally to Lemon but he gently and insistently takes her into the tragedy of his own life, having just lost his wife and been estranged from his own son for his son's entire life, as he leads her to face the biggest tragedy of her life. Alternately narrated by Jinx and by Lemon, the past comes to life as they finally speak of Jinx's beautiful mother and of Berris, her fiance and lover, the man who murdered her in a fit of jealous rage. Each of them adds layers to the tragedy, sharing from their own perspective, admitting their feelings from the time, exposing what drove them to act the way they did, finally creating a complete and total picture of that night. As Lemon listens and expands on Jinx's understanding of the events leading up to her mother's murder, he cares for her, nurtures her, and cracks open her heart just the tiniest bit, allowing her to finally face all her confused and unhappy feelings, to share the unspeakable, and to let go.
The novel is exquisitely written. It takes place over one weekend although it ranges backwards fourteen years and to the months leading up to the murder. There is a slow uncovering of long, intentionally buried memories and Edwards uses all of the senses to show this blossoming, describing sights and sounds and noises with a startling vividness. And she tackles race, conceptions of beauty, abuse, love, family, and coming of age surprisingly fully all within this relatively short novel. The way that the reverberations of the murder leak into every crevice of Jinx's life and the way that her all-consuming guilt dooms her to be an emotionally distant and confused mother are convincingly shown. While there is certainly no doubt as to the fact of the murder (it is made clear almost from the start that Berris went to prison for it), the way in which the whole truth about the circumstances is revealed is masterfully done, keeping the tension of the story constant and drawing the reader ever forward. Intense, passionate, and brimming with emotion, this is a compelling read.
A Cupboard Full of Coats is Yvvette Edwards' first novel, and I'm happy to see that it was made available via an independent publisher, Oneworld . I went to their website and found a few more little gems I'm probably going to check
A Cupboard Full of Coats is another one of those novels that I probably would never have read had it not been placed on the Booker Prize longlist this year. It skirts the boundary of what I consider "women's fiction," but at the same time, there's another story embedded within dealing with the experiences of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, so it's a bit difficult to affix any particular label to this novel. It has a very well-developed sense of place, and even the mentions of the food throughout the book add to the overall atmosphere of the story.
The main storyline follows and is related primarily by the main character, Jinx, a young woman who works as a cosmetologist at a funeral home. She is living apart from her husband and her little boy, largely because she seems to have no capacity for caring for anyone. She's cold as ice, and even when her son comes for his visits, she has no idea how to relate to him. She's happier to be around dead people -- all of which stems from an incident fourteen years earlier when her mother was murdered in the family home. Throughout all of those years, Jinx has felt guilty about her role in her mother's death; that event and her guilt have left her emotionally paralyzed. Now, as the novel opens, it's all brought back to her in the person of Lemon, who wants to relive the events of the past -- all symbolized by the cupboard full of coats left behind by Jinx's mother.
My feelings about this novel are a bit mixed -- I am not a huge fan of this type of story at all and it's tough to get past the fact that this is the story of a young girl who comes of age while living under the same roof as her mother's abuser. You know, the kind of stuff you could tag as dysfunctional family lit. And while I am fully conscious of the fact that abuse against women is prevalent and needs to be brought out into the open, those types of novels just aren't my thing. At the same time, I'm very interested in novels dealing with the stories of immigrants, especially about children born to immigrant parents, and that was the novel's selling point for me. The story of Sam, Jinx's best friend in high school, offers a look at the kind of dilemmas these children face. I only wish there had been much more along these lines; for the most part, the past story (the story of how Jinx's mother came to be murdered) was much more interesting than the narrative occurring in the present. I also found Jinx as a character to be emotionally overwrought in that melodramatic sort of way that makes for great women's fiction, but a bit overdone for my own particular tastes.
However, I will say that many people absolutely LOVE this book, and that 4- and 5-star ratings abound everywhere a rating can be given. And considering the fact that this is Ms. Edwards' first novel, it's a good debut -- and how many first novelists end up on the Booker Prize longlist? I'd probably give her next novel a go if it's more about immigrant experience and less women's fiction-y. This one is just a bit more mainstream than literary for my own enjoyment.
In a nutshell, this is the story of Jinx and how, as a teenager she watched her beautiful mother become a victim of her lover, Berris;
First of all, Jinx seemed to have a few too many problems for a child who, except for 4 months during Berris's stay, had a wonderfully close and stable relationship with her mother. In my book, dysfunctional family relations have long reaching effects from a young age, and although teens can be unpredictable, when it comes to the crunch, early childhood experiences override short term chaos. I'm sure there are many example to disprove this theory, but there you have it.
Secondly, I found minor editorial errors that, although may be missed by some, annoyed my Booker Prize shortlist sensibilities (sorry, but these do matter). Worst example being the fact that Jinx found Lemon's cooking 'compelling', and on the next page she found her son's eyes 'compelling'. What's that about? If you want your readers to empathise with your characters, you simple have to do better than that.
Do I think you should read this book? Yes, the storyline is intense, real, and moves along to a ... well, I won't disclose the conclusion, but I do applaud the effort and encourage a writer of this, her first novel.
Even though I didn't really like Jinx, I thought her character was well-developed and the reasons she turned out to be such a dysfunctional adult were definitely authentic. The domestic abuse storyline was tough to read but realistic. Jinx and Lemon put each other through the wringer - their weekend together is like an intensive therapy session. I enjoyed the way the author revealed the events of the past slowly and thoroughly as Jinx and Lemon open up to each other.
The writing was beautiful yet melancholy. I can see why A Cupboard Full of Coats was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.
One evening Lemon, an old friend of her mothers, turns up unannounced with news to break. But there's more, and over an weekend of alcohol, music and sumptuous Montserratian cuisine they revisit the events that led up to the fateful night.
Although set in and around my old stomping grounds in London around Hackney Downs and Dalston Kingsland I did not expect to like this book. For a start it is littered with ridiculous name: Jinx, Lemon and Red, names which proffer and unnecessary distraction. However as the book went on I found myself wanting to know where it was going and even enjoying the process. The descriptions of the male characters, especially Berris and Lemon are well developed and harken back to a timeless sense of style, and the descriptions of the food had me salivating.
It isn't in conventional booker territory so I would be surprised to see it going through to the shortlist but for a first time effort by Yvette Edwards, it isn't half bad.
As told by Jinx, the story immerses the reader in the back stories of each character as if we are inside their heads. It's a genuinely strong and sorrowful read.
The story is compelling and Jinx is very real.
Jinx is living in London alone. As an embalmer, she works better with the dead than with the living, including her own young son and his father, her ex-husband. Painful memories resurface one day when she opens her front door to a man she's known since she was 16. Lemon was a friend to her
What I Liked
The complications - I kept thinking of Toni Morrison again and again and again as I read this book. The issues are so complicated and so obviously deeply felt/understood by the author that the reader can sometimes feel left out. I liked this bc I like a book that makes me think...I don't want it to be an easy read or one that is obvious...this book has no chance of being obvious.
Lemon - I had to struggle to keep up with the story it took him 3 days to tell (he himself called it a "long-winded roundabout")...but I wanted to.
The dialect and vocabulary - to be honest I both liked and disliked this aspect of A Cupboard Full of Coats - the cultural voice adds authenticity to this story...a glimpse into the rich life of a culture other than my own, actually a culture within a culture. But, I did sometimes feel left out...and especially with Lemon's dialect and choice of words, I had to re-read sections and searched for context clues where many times there actually were none. I actually used Google searches several times to familiarize myself with words like "digi," "sorrel," "Dunlop plimsolls," "poofter," "jingbang," "cassava," "christophine," "sabaca," and "shebeen."
The coats and their symbolic meaning...I didn't get it at first but when it hit me...wow, not an excited, loud "WOW!"...just a quiet introspective "wow"...a quite effective piece of imagery to say the least.
Jinx's son's connection to her mother was another piece of strong vine that holds this story and the Jinx's inability to be a mother to her own child together. Jinx's lack of maternal feeling toward Red and was actually unbelievable to me until the story circled back around...and it's not like me to believe actions like these. Another wow moment.
What I Didn't Like
The ending - things worked out a little too nicely for me...granted there's a lot of story left to be told...but still. These are seriously damaged people who are struggling with very deeply ingrained issues; then within the last few pages, the sun comes up and everything's ok. Huh?
Berris - duh, he's an abuser...how could anybody like him? Except for the woman he's abusing.
Sam - I am still not sure what her significance is to this story...I'll let you know if I figure it out.
Curry - there's a lot of it in this story...and I don't like it :P Jinx finds comfort in the smells of home and hearth but it was difficult to appreciate her comfort when my own personal aversion is so strong :/
This is one of those stories that unpeels itself in unsystematic ways...questions didn't always get answered when I needed them to and a few times I felt as if I didn't have enough information to figure out what in the world was going on or why Jinx acted the way she did. I actually found one post-it note about midway through the story where I simply wrote "huh"?
I don't mind switching back and forth in time, but I swear I felt like there was another part to this story, one that began during Jinx's childhood, that I missed completely...there's has to be some connection somewhere with Sam, but I never got it.
Overall Recommendation
If you like family sagas including painful, hard to read sometimes, issues, then you'll like this one. Don't expect a happy, sunny ending though; if you need everything to work out like a Cinderella story, this isn't your read. It's quite dark at times, but it's supposed to be.
Although this wasn't the most fascinating or compelling of books, for the most part I enjoyed listening to A Cupboard Full of Coats and having the story disclosed, bit by bit. I particularly commend the reader, Adjoa Andoh, who smoothly transitioned between a pretty straightforward British narrator, a working class/East End London accent, and various Caribbean voices. Between her skill here, and the well-rounded characters, A Cupboard Full of Coats felt fresh and different.
Rating: 4 stars. Good job, Yvette Edwards, in getting your debut novel nominated for the Booker Prize.
sensory-rich prose and skillful storytelling make the unraveling of Jinx's mother's story an engrossing read, putting me in mind of Toni Morrison's style but (thankfully) requiring much less analysis. Maybe the
ALERT - Spoiler: Since her mother's death, Jinx is an orphan dealing with her mother's things and her memories. The cupboard/closet is full of Jinx's mother's coats, beautiful; coats, each one a gift from her