Bookworm, Issue 4
The Book: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
In Girl, Woman, Other, author Bernardine Evaristo invites us to walk in the footsteps of a dozen British women, nearly all of whom are black, experiencing the world from each one’s singular perspective. That is, until we meet the next woman – whose story collides with the previous to provide an entirely new, sometimes surprising, point of view. Evaristo masterfully centers their voices and experiences, challenging readers to reconsider assumptions about race, gender, politics and power.
The novel’s characters are complex and spirited, so our wine pairing mirrors those qualities. It’s a sparkling rosé produced by two black sisters who make delicious wines while pushing boundaries and celebrating black women.
Evaristo employs stories of daily struggles and aspirations – family life, romantic relationships, career aspirations, and the search for belonging – to bring this novel to life and to connect with readers from any background.
From the onset, readers will notice the book’s lack of traditional paragraph and sentence structure. The writing encourages a varied pace, speed up during a stream-of-consciousness passage or slow down to really consider a sentence that resonates. It’s akin to spoken word poetry, the words tugging at our emotions page by page. For example, Megan/Morgan leaves her parent’s home to live in a hostel with other teenagers and finds:
solitude
to register what she was feeling
forcing herself to become deaf to all sound expect her own
it felt like meditation as she concentrated on the concertina of her own breathing
for moments or was it minutes?
at a time
finding
peace
momentarily
enough to consider her next move
It is only fitting that Evaristo chooses to write about this cast of black women in a non-traditional way. The characters dwell outside the “mainstream.” Some of them are immigrants, some are gay, some struggle with poverty, a few are young, one is elderly and one identifies as gender-free. These are people whose experiences are considered less valid by those who hold power in our society, but rendered in Evaristo’s poetry-prose, their voices are strong and clear. We “hear” them, even when society at large or their friends and family do not.
While the main characters are each interesting on their own, their stories also embody larger, ugly truths about racism and sexism. Hattie, a young, mixed race woman from rural England marries a black U.S. serviceman after WWII. He has no interest in returning to America, where his brother was lynched. Carole, the British-born daughter of immigrants and a successful investment banker, is “used to clients and new colleagues looking past her to the person they are clearly expecting to meet,” thinking Carole should be serving the coffee and tea. Bummi, a Nigerian immigrant with a degree in mathematics, discovers “that her first class degree from a Third World country would mean nothing in her new country,” where she works as a cleaner. But these women have their own dreams, and a vein of resistance runs strongly through their stories. For example, Amma, a black lesbian playwright, spends her career “slinging rocks” at the establishment, until thirty years later she finds success staging a play at the National Theater in London. She makes her own way and succeeds on her own terms.
One reason this novel is so compelling and relatable is because Evaristo’s women’s lives are messy. While there are misunderstandings and secrets, there’s also intimacy and honesty between mothers and daughters; lovers; a teacher and her student; wives and husbands; and friends. It illustrates how difficult it can be to truly understand another human being, even someone you love. When Bummi’s daughter Carole announces her engagement to a white English man instead of a Nigerian man, as Bummi expects, the two stop talking. Carole thinks, “when your own mother pretends you don’t exist, it is like you are dead.” Eventually they reconcile, but Bummi concludes “her daughter would soon belong completely to them.”
Evaristo has filled this novel with little surprises and contradictions. Just as you form an opinion about a character, there’s a revelation that might change your mind for better or for worse. Even the characters with bad behavior deserve the reader’s sympathy at times. Uptight Shirley frowns upon her lifelong friend Amma’s lesbian lifestyle. But Shirley remains steadfast and supportive and never says anything to Amma because “she can’t not have Amma in her life”
she loves her
as a friend
Come to this book with an open mind – regarding the unorthodox writing style and the cast of characters who exemplify “other” – and be richly rewarded with a reading experience that underscores our shared humanity. See yourself in these heartbreaking stories and allow Evaristo, and these black women that she brings to life, to remind us that we are more similar than we are different.
The Wine: McBride Sisters Collection Sparkling Brut Rosé, NV, Hawke’s Bay New Zealand, $24.99
The wine is pale salmon and bubbly. It has medium intensity on the nose with youthful aromas of fresh strawberry and raspberry, cranberry, lemon, orange zest, green apple, watermelon, under-ripe peach and bread dough.
On the palate, the wine is dry with refreshing medium (+) acidity. It has medium alcohol at 12.5% and a medium (-) body. Medium intense flavors mirror the nose, but with a more candied quality to the fruit, and as those fruit flavors fade a hint of spice – ginger and pink peppercorn – emerges. The mousse is creamy, and some lees aging lends a touch of richness. The wine has a medium finish.
This sparkling rosé is absolutely delicious. It’s well-balanced with a full array of complex fruit flavors. It’s lively, fruity and refreshing, but also manages to feel elegant at the same time.
The wine is 100% pinot noir.
If you don’t finish the bottle and you want to preserve the bubbles for a few days, use this Champagne stopper.
Why the pairing works:
Black women’s stories take center stage in Girl, Woman, Other, and so it is important that this wine pairing is produced by two black sisters. The McBride sisters overcame obstacles, as do many of Evaristo’s characters, and found great success in the wine industry – traditionally a place that excluded women and minorities.
(Robin and Andréa McBride are half-sisters who grew up on opposites sides of the world, one in California and one in New Zealand. Watch the story of how they eventually met and discovered a shared passion for winemaking in this short video from the CBS Morning Show: https://vimeo.com/237009925)
At first a sparkling wine seems like a choice for celebrations and not for a book that tackles serious issues, but since Evaristo’s book is full of surprises, I wanted to surprise you with my wine choice.
This sparkling rosé feels “alive” in your mouth. And for me, this mirrors Evaristo’s ability to bring her characters to life with her unconventional writing style. Her writing and characters are lively and spirited, which are qualities that the bubbles add to our wine.
And like the bubbles, Evaristo’s women are rising to the surface. They cannot be ignored. They are resilient. They are escaping the “bottle” that others have decided to put them in.