Becoming Abigail

Abani's writes beautiful prose with startlingly original imagery. His attention to craft is evident in every line with regard to diction and overall narrative structure. A good thing because writing any less beautiful and precise would lack the nuance to capture a character as complex and tormented as Abigail, locked in her dead mother's shadow and battered by life from one misfortune to the next. We are given a view of her trauma through her traumatized, as unreliable as it is devastating, but it is all the same intoxicating because her voice is molded by an incredible contemporary novelist.

From my blog http://librarytart.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-first-test-post/

Abani, Chris ~ Becoming Abigail

When I selected this book I thought
Who on earth writes novellas? What is a novella? A book that didn’t get a deadline extension? Oh, okay, I’ll borrow the bloody thing because it doesn’t weigh a lot. I took the book to skim while waiting for a vegetarian mee goreng at the noodle bar – the 10-minute wait was two hours too short because I fell immediately into Abigail’s world and wasn’t ready to leave when number 14 was called. I ate my words instead of lunch.

50-word description
Abigail is a Nigerian girl raised by her father in the constant shadow of her dead mother. As a teenager she is sent to live with relatives in show more London so her father can live without the growing reminder of the woman he lost, while Abigail deals with her own ghosts of sexual abuse and enforced prostitution while searching for identity and fleeting moments of doomed affection.

150-word review
Abigail’s story could never end happily and Chris Abani handles the portrayal of her brutalised existence with a compassionate and kind touch. Confronting episodes such as Abigail’s dehumanisation when she is relocated to London and her subsequent revenge are overdramatic in isolation but fit within the quiet telling of the other traumas she faces.

The narrative steps between the present and the past to layer the foundations of Abigail’s hopeless situation. I re-read the book as soon as I finished so I could linger over the prose, and found a beautiful trick of construction that the book’s ending and beginning form a perfect circle of sequence. Abigail keeps track of her own story by marking her body to preserve memories and moments with burns and cuts.

I have a crush on poets who write books and he has added himself to my love list alongside Margaret Atwood and Michel Houellebecq.
abani, chris ~ becoming abigail

Found in
Fiction A

Borrowed
Oct 08

Rating
Magnificent show less

Abani's prose is beautiful in Becoming Abigail. A few times I wondered if Abani himself would have edited out some cliches in his writing, if one of his students had turned it in as creative writing, but these were very few compared to the overwhelming prevalence of novel imagery and striking language. The story of the daughter, who tries very hard not to become Abigail, and a girl, who painfully becomes a woman, is mostly disturbing and uncomfortable. Time travel is done well, as the narration switches back and forth between Now and Then, again thanks to Abani's mastery with language. In the end, I felt relieved, rather than sad. And I am left with the striking image of a big toe brushing up against the cheek, and a cut, bleeding.

The saddest story, written about a horrid subject, turns out to be one of the most well-written books of all time. It holds you gripped in it's clutches well after the last pages is turned. The 120-page novella, from Chris Abani, Becoming Abigail haunts me from the first time I read it - it calls from my bookshelves to be read on occasion and I wanted to suggest you download or order it from Amazon today, It will touch your heart for ever. The prose reads like poetry, the descriptions evocative, the ending painful yet you will never forget.

The saddest story, written about a horrid subject, turns out to be one of the most well-written books of all time. It holds you gripped in it's clutches well after the last pages is turned. The 120-page novella, from Chris Abani, Becoming Abigail haunts me from the first time I read it - it calls from my bookshelves to be read on occasion and I wanted to suggest you download or order it from Amazon today, It will touch your heart for ever. The prose reads like poetry, the descriptions evocative, the ending painful yet you will never forget.

The saddest story, written about a horrid subject, turns out to be one of the most well-written books of all time. It holds you gripped in it's clutches well after the last pages is turned. The 120-page novella, from Chris Abani, Becoming Abigail haunts me from the first time I read it - it calls from my bookshelves to be read on occasion and I wanted to suggest you download or order it from Amazon today, It will touch your heart for ever. The prose reads like poetry, the descriptions evocative, the ending painful yet you will never forget.

This is a well written novela about a very troubled young girl from Africa whose mother dies in childbirth. She suffers abuse at the hands of every male figure in her life and things do not turn out well. Abani is a talented writer, but the subject matter is a little disturbing.