Lola Jaye

I received an advance copy of this book. Thank you

Wow, this was a very good book. The story alternates between two characters, Dikembe/Celestine and Lowra. Each suffered the same trauma, almost 100 years apart.

Dikembe was a young child in the Congo in the early 1900's, when an Englishman, Sir Richard Babbington comes to his village and convinces his mother to let him take Dikembe to England. There is much violence going on in the area, and the mother feels this will be for the best. She tells Dikembe it will only be for a little while. Sir Richard, to give him a little bit of credit, he educates Dikembe and sends him to school, but Dikembe is not his own person, he has to change his name and is repeatedly lied to and made to act in a certain way. Sir Richard promised to always take care of him, but upon his untimely death, Celestine finds out that was Sir Richard's last lie.
Sir Richard's niece and husband put a quick end to Celestine's education, and make him a nonpaid servant, aka slave. When Celestine tries to get what he feels is his due, he is locked in a dark attic, only to come out to prepare their meals and clean the house.
Lowra, many years later, lives in that same house. Her mother died when she was young, and her father continued to raise her. When it came time for schooling, her father found a tutor, Nina, and soon fell in love with her. Nina was all pleasant when he was around, but not when he wasn't. Lowra's father died on his honeymoon, and Lowra's life changed immediately. Rather than deal with this child, Nina also locked Lowra up in the attic. She would only come out when social service came to check on her education and her senile grandmother visited. While there for 4 years, she finds clues that someone else spent time there also.

The story continues alternating between the two characters, telling their story in flashbacks, and present time. As part of her healing, Lowra decides to pursue finding out more about who else had been in the attic. She has a lot of baggage and doesn't accept help willingly, but finds a young historian, Monty, whose passion about this mystery is as strong as hers. As they work to find their answers, Lowra, gradually opens up and begins to accept help and the idea that she can move on.

I'll stop here, but the book only picks up paces and it continues and is hard to put down.… (more)

The Attic Child tells the story of Dikembe and Lowra, two children from different times, and their childhood spent in the same attic of the same house. More than that, though, it's a story of trauma, and shines a light on the horrific way children were taken from their homes and put on display as objects rather than human beings.

The narrative flips between Dikembe at the beginning of the 20th century and Lowra in the 1970s and 1990s. Dikembe's sections are heartbreaking, yet I was fully invested in what happened to him as a character. I'd been vaguely aware of children and adults from "exotic" countries exhibited for events like the World's Fair at the time, but it had never been framed from the perspective of the people who were taken from their homes. Dikembe's story sadly wouldn't have been unusual for the time, and I'm glad that Jaye sought to bring more light to this practice.

I did find Lowra to be harder to empathize with - perhaps this is a result of her trauma, or perhaps this is just part of her character. Either way, any time I was reading a section about Lowra, I was anxious to get back to Dikembe's sections. Again, I'm not entirely convinced this was a mistake by the author so much as just who Lowra is, but it made me want to fast-foward and get to the next chapter more quickly. Ultimately, this is what made me quit reading - I just wasn't interested enough in Lowra to get through the sections that heavily featured her.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to those interested in dual timelines or historical fiction.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.… (more)