I’ve just finished reading the excellent Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson. And it’s the first book in a while that caught me unaware and had me sobbing as rain bounced off my window. When I read Caleb’s first book, Open Water, I was blown away and this second novel didn’t disappoint. There’s an energy to the writing that’s both absorbing and transporting. It’s a world that I’m not familiar with but within a few pages, I feel like I’m sitting at kitchen tables and counters and roaming streets and I find myself pining for my late teens and early twenties.
There’s something else that stood out. And that was a focus on food. On the detail of making, eating and sharing it. On what it means for a persons identity and culture, for a community, for a family. The splash of oil on a hot pan, the split of garlic under a palm. Food has a way of bringing a story to the front of our minds, engaging all our sense and making us feel intimately involved in a story.