GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernandine Evaristo

"Girl, Woman, Other" by British author Bernadine Evaristo received the 2019 Booker Prize in Literature.  Evaristo's novel is a menage of no less than a dozen women characters whose lives intertwine and ebb & flow from one life to the next.  Three central characters for whom you might connect the unending individual threads are Amma, Dominique and Yaz, Amma's daughter.  The plundering plot germinates from Amma & Dominque rebellious youths.  They considered themselves radical, anti-establishment, thespian lesbians.  Traversing decades, continents & multitudinous lovers, these black, bohemian, bumptious women discover themselves in their 50s now ensconced within the establishment.   Evaristo brokers a writing style that steps outside the constrictors of linear timelines, plot development or literary format. The writing is at times poetic & philosophical; free-flowing leading into unpredictable trajectories.  The punctuation is notably absent but the politicizing of feminism, sexism, racism, racial & cultural identities prevails amongst the numerous relationships, friendships & familial bonds.  It's fair to conclude friendships are the omnipotent connections that holds the human family together.  The convoluted, deconstructed storylines meander into various characters that are all so well construed we're willing sojourners in their lives.  Men are sublimated to the sidelines but not altogether dismissed. Men are also perceived as scapegoats.  Patriarchy is condemned as a system that oppresses all women.  There's a prevailing envy & awareness of living in a male dominanted society.  Only men are freely condoned to be polygamous. There's a cadre of those oppressed: women, black men & women, and the LGBTQ communities for starters.  Truth be told, hierarchies of power & privilege will never disappear. Evaristo foresees a future a world where restrictions of a gender-binary will dissolve.  Women will stop defining themselves by having a male partner and view dependance on a man a sign of weakness.  There are cunning observations on religion & evolution. "Christmas should be called Greedymas a time when people over-eat and over indulge in the name of Jesus Christ." It's worth noting despite outward appearances, mankind shares 99.9% identical genetic makeup.   GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER is a unique, imaginative, mind-blowing creation to marvel.
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