What Lies Between Us

I knew that I would be emotionally wrecked by this novel from the story of the moon bear in the Prologue. Read those first two pages for a virtual map of the dark and sad story to come - a foreboding that lasts for the next 300+ pages. You know how this one is going to end before you start, and every page provides clues for the who, what, where, and why. The only thing you can't do is stop it from happening. Munaweera writes with raw and beautiful descriptions, and drags you along kicking and screaming to a bitter end. Although I have not read A Little Life yet by Hanya Yanagihara, I suspect those that loved that book will love this book. This story will also instigate wonderful discussions among book groups. Bravo!

I received an advance readers copy of What Lies Between Us from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review to be posted on my blog, GoodReads, and The Reading Room.

Deep, deeper, no, the deepest of subject matter is found living in cloudless sunlight as its gloriously bare reality is shown layer by layer to the reader, without protection of the narrator by the author or judgment on the narrator by the author. Nayomi Munaweera does not allow one to passively follow the story; you are thrust into the crux of the characters' humanity. I have never before felt such an immediate and profound connection to a book nor a character, my brain struggling through its internal conflict and vacillation between full-on empathy and revulsion and show more sympathy and anger.

I am thankful to have read this novel as it resulted in not only enjoying a finely written novel, but also, the opportunity to sift through and clarify my own perspective on childhood sexual abuse, insecure love, and motherhood.

What Lies Between will stay with me - a lasting impact formed. For this reason, I have placed it at pinnacle level in my bookshelf.
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“What Lies Between Us,” by award-winning author Nayomi Munaweera, is a dark and atmospheric tale of trauma, dissociation, obsessive love, and psychosis masterfully narrated in exquisite prose. It is a novel of perceptive psychological depth, a novel of satisfying forensic texture, and a novel of superb emotional detail. But most important, it is a novel that richly showcases the author’s considerable literary talents.

The novel opens with a prologue in the form of a parable. It is the story of a Himalayan moon bear that is driven to kill her cub in a most gruesome way. It is a brief, shocking, and gut-wrenching tale. The author starts the book with this unsettling story because she says, “it tells us everything we need to know show more about the nature of love between a mother and a child.” Wow, what an incredibly outlandish statement! From then on, I was riveted to the book. I just had to know what that was all about.

After the prologue, the narrator plunges us into the strange and atmospheric tale of her life. She tells it as a first-person narration in the form of a confession. She has already served fifteen years in prison for a “grotesque” and “unthinkable” act against her own child. We are not told the exact nature of the crime (yet the parable at the beginning gives us significant foreshadowing of what might happen in the end). The book is the prisoner’s attempt to explain herself and her crime, to help us understand not only what she did, but also why she did it. She starts at the very beginning, when she “was a child and not yet the mother.”

The narrator chooses to tell us her story in first person present tense. Think about that; it’s very odd and awkward to tell a story in retrospect all in the present tense! It means that at any time during the story, the narrator only knows what she would have known at that age and time. In this story, that is important. As a result, the story unfolds as a clinically accurate psychological and forensic portrait of the criminal from her birth through to the crime and beyond.

The narrator was born into a Sinhalese Buddhist family in Kandy, Sri Lanka. She emigrated to Fremont, California when she was a teenager and went to college at a major university not far away. She began her post-college years as a young professional living on her own in San Francisco. She married. She had a child. Eventually, she committed her horrendous crime. She was sent to prison. She has remained in prison for fifteen years. She writes this confession from prison. That is the rough outline. But the novel is all about the considerable psychological and emotional detail that makes up this woman’s life.

This is a story of trauma, dissociation, and psychosis. It is also a story about obsessive love—the extremely dangerous type in which the loved one becomes the whole of another person’s interior. The type of love where someone “calibrates [her] days around his presence,” where she weaves her “life around him,” where he breaks her “heart with happiness.”

Personally, I think the novel is a formidable tour de force. The story is heartrending and the characters seem—in every way—like they could belong to real people in real-life situations. It is a dark subject, but psychologically enlightening.

For me, the greatest reward of reading this novel was not the theme or the tale, but the opportunity to experience the author’s elegant prose.

This book will make a fine selection for a book club. There is much depth and detail in it that will lend itself to discussion. Also, book club members may enjoy sharing with each other specific passages that excited their literary sensibilities. show less

3.5 Stars

I enjoyed this atmospheric and emotional novel by Nayomi Munaweera. This is a new author for me and I am glad I picked this one up to read.

The novel opens with a prologue in the form of a parable. It is the story of a Himalayan moon bear that is driven to kill her cub in a most gruesome way. It is a short and absolutely shocking tale but what an opening for this novel. At first I questioned the reason for this shocking opening but the author does explain , “it tells us everything we need to know about the nature of love between a mother and a child.” and I knew I just had to continue reading this book.

The novel's rich and vivid prose tells the life story of its narrator from her Sri Lankan girlhood to her adult life in show more America. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the culture and traditions of Sri lanka and how upon moving to America their lives are affected and influenced by the people around them.
The story is at times brutal and yet I never found it graphic.

An emotional read about how our pasts can influence out futures show less

Amma and Thatha are the parents of young Ganga, the narrator. Born in Sri Lanka, Ganga senses perhaps her parents are not as happily married as they would like Ganga and others to to believe. Amma spends much time sleeping during the day and Ganga hears muffled arguments coming from her parents bedroom. In Ganga's early teens, a tragedy compels Ganga and her mother to immigrate from Sri Lanka to the United States. Ganga anxiously navigates the challenges of being an immigrant, and even fulfills the American dream of graduating from college . Despite that seeming succeess, the secrets of Ganga and her family continue to follow and haunt her.

An intriguing , well told story that is more focused on damaging family relationships than living show more in and immigrating from Sri Lanka. Highly recommended.

4 stars show less

The long reach of the past and the unreliability of memory are two prominent themes of this novel. Our unnamed narrator, though in Sri Lanka she was known as baby Madame, is the main character and we follow her life from a young child in Sri Lanka to adulthood in the USA. From the beginning we know she has done something terrible but we don't know why or how. This is one of those books that I believe the less said the better.

So I will just say the descriptions are lush, the prose is amazing and the inner thoughts of our character is well displayed. Whether the reader will understand her actions is up to the reader, the author gratefully keeps her opinions away from the written page. This is both a sad and beautiful book. In Sri Lanka show more out narrator finds both beauty and terror, in the USA she finds how difficult it is to fit in when you are different. Here she will also find love and heartache.

This is a first rate novel from an author who keeps getting better and better. Would make for a great book discussion because I am sure everyone will have a different opinion of our narrator and her actions. Would be interesting to see who falls where.

ARC from netgalley. show less

This is a highly-affecting and emotional book that keeps getting better with each turn of the page.

We meet our un-named narrator at the beginning of the story, and know that something bad has happened, but we don't know exactly why or how. Starting at the beginning of her story we learn about her life -- as she remembers it. Told with lyrical language, the story is at once beautiful and melancholy. Munaweera tackles subjects that are heartbreaking and taboo.

Others have mentioned, and I agree, that this would be a great book club discussion book. This book also has the most intriguing prologue I have ever read!

4 (teary!) stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.