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echorose202's review
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This author has a way with words - descriptions were very visual and the depth helped me to remember the story in the weeks between picking up this book. What ruined it for me was the blurb tells you the whole plot, there weren't any twists and turns and that took away from the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Death
musubi_mumma's review
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
A colleague recommended this book to me and oh my, do I owe them BIG now! The Fortune Men is devastating in every way. The story, without question, is a profound lesson in the paradoxes and insidiousness of racism, the tragedy of putting faith in a prejudiced judicial system, how thin the line is between life and death, past and future, the awfulness of history.
The novel revolves around a young Somali man who has found his way to Britain and built a life for himself there, complete with a wife and children. He is an ordinary man, a flawed man, but not a bad man; his morals are imperfect but not malicious. In his Welsh town, there is a sundry shop, owned and run by a Jewish woman. She is murdered. He is arrested. The novel spins from that point around his trial and his incarceration.
The details of the crime and his arrest are revealed, it becomes clear that things are not so black and white, literally and figuratively, according to the shade of his skin. In this Welsh neighborhood, there has been the recent in flux of many immigrants: those from the Caribbean — coming off the HMS Windrush — as well others like him, from Somalia, parts of West Africa, Nigeria, South Asians from India, Pakistan. There are Jews, Muslims, Christians. And then there are the White Welsh and English. The only thing they seem to have in common is their denizenship in a working class milieu: they are each trying to survive in their own ways, struggling with the constraints put upon them by their race, the color of their skin, their gender.
Mohamed’s prose weaves together the multiple layers of this crime, both the murder and the crime of injustice via complex characters who each come to this place armed with their own ambitions and hampered by their past experiences; they are as flawed as the main protagonist — and like him, we can see that they are not truly “bad” people, but merely making decisions based on the ethnic, racial, and class based expectations put on them. Reader, you will weep for all the characters in The Fortune Men, for they are as trapped as the prisoner in his cell.
It is hard to write a review of this book without giving away its ending, because its ending is really the beginning of the question that led to its creation. It is based on a true story, which is what makes this even more tragic and heart-rending.
All I can say is: You must read this. You must weep for the man, the woman, his wife, his children, the families torn apart by the events that took place in 1952-1953 in this small Welsh town. And you must be angry.
The novel revolves around a young Somali man who has found his way to Britain and built a life for himself there, complete with a wife and children. He is an ordinary man, a flawed man, but not a bad man; his morals are imperfect but not malicious. In his Welsh town, there is a sundry shop, owned and run by a Jewish woman. She is murdered. He is arrested. The novel spins from that point around his trial and his incarceration.
The details of the crime and his arrest are revealed, it becomes clear that things are not so black and white, literally and figuratively, according to the shade of his skin. In this Welsh neighborhood, there has been the recent in flux of many immigrants: those from the Caribbean — coming off the HMS Windrush — as well others like him, from Somalia, parts of West Africa, Nigeria, South Asians from India, Pakistan. There are Jews, Muslims, Christians. And then there are the White Welsh and English. The only thing they seem to have in common is their denizenship in a working class milieu: they are each trying to survive in their own ways, struggling with the constraints put upon them by their race, the color of their skin, their gender.
Mohamed’s prose weaves together the multiple layers of this crime, both the murder and the crime of injustice via complex characters who each come to this place armed with their own ambitions and hampered by their past experiences; they are as flawed as the main protagonist — and like him, we can see that they are not truly “bad” people, but merely making decisions based on the ethnic, racial, and class based expectations put on them. Reader, you will weep for all the characters in The Fortune Men, for they are as trapped as the prisoner in his cell.
It is hard to write a review of this book without giving away its ending, because its ending is really the beginning of the question that led to its creation. It is based on a true story, which is what makes this even more tragic and heart-rending.
All I can say is: You must read this. You must weep for the man, the woman, his wife, his children, the families torn apart by the events that took place in 1952-1953 in this small Welsh town. And you must be angry.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Classism, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Blood, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Islamophobia, Murder, and Police brutality
nialiversuch's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Xenophobia, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Classism, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Blood, Grief, Murder, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Cursing
Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Antisemitism
the_bitchy_booker's review against another edition
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
We should none of us be surprised that colonial British justice isn't as just to its colonized peoples as it is swift to suspect those who aren't as White as the Queen.
This novel is a fictionalized account of the real murder of a Jewish woman in Cardiff, and the miscarriage of justice that followed.
Mahmood, a Somalian living in Britain, a husband and the father of three young boys, known for petty crimes such as theft (and disliked by a good number of people) catches the blame as the police find a shocking number of witnesses who say they saw him on the street near the crime that night. His own lawyer calls him a 'semi-civilized savage' in court.
The women who caught a glimpse of the murderer in the actual place it happened said it was not Mahmood. Two of the Crown witnesses gave conflicting accounts of where he was when the murder happened. One of them tried to bribe his mother in law to give the same false evidence so that they could split the reward money tied to a conviction. There was not one shred of physical evidence linking him to the crime.
<Spoiler> Nevertheless, he is found guilty and sentenced to death, and every appeal is denied. The end of the novel contains a postscript that it took decades for his family to have the verdict overturned. It shadowed all their lives, and the murder was never solved.
Because Mahmood is illiterate and speaks broken English, people who take the time to really talk to him, including me if I'm being honest, are surprised by how smart he is. The novel brilliantly juxtaposes his imperfect speech, and how that makes you think about who he is, with the depth and lyricism of his inner thoughts.
We are taken along as he feels optimism, grief, betrayal, anger, peace, a kind of spiritual meaning, and finally abject fear in the face of what's happening to him. The end of the novel is truly difficult to read; the suddenness with which it all ends mirroring the drop at the end of the hangman's noose which, despite all the reflecting he has done, was inexorably beside him from the moment he was pronounced guilty, secreted behind a hidden door, always waiting and never more than a few paces away.
Could this novel win the Booker? It's timely fictionalized history, so maybe! (Please don't spoil me I haven't looked up the winner yet).
TW for execution by hanging, murder, passing reference to rape.
This novel is a fictionalized account of the real murder of a Jewish woman in Cardiff, and the miscarriage of justice that followed.
Mahmood, a Somalian living in Britain, a husband and the father of three young boys, known for petty crimes such as theft (and disliked by a good number of people) catches the blame as the police find a shocking number of witnesses who say they saw him on the street near the crime that night. His own lawyer calls him a 'semi-civilized savage' in court.
The women who caught a glimpse of the murderer in the actual place it happened said it was not Mahmood. Two of the Crown witnesses gave conflicting accounts of where he was when the murder happened. One of them tried to bribe his mother in law to give the same false evidence so that they could split the reward money tied to a conviction. There was not one shred of physical evidence linking him to the crime.
<Spoiler> Nevertheless, he is found guilty and sentenced to death, and every appeal is denied. The end of the novel contains a postscript that it took decades for his family to have the verdict overturned. It shadowed all their lives, and the murder was never solved.
Because Mahmood is illiterate and speaks broken English, people who take the time to really talk to him, including me if I'm being honest, are surprised by how smart he is. The novel brilliantly juxtaposes his imperfect speech, and how that makes you think about who he is, with the depth and lyricism of his inner thoughts.
We are taken along as he feels optimism, grief, betrayal, anger, peace, a kind of spiritual meaning, and finally abject fear in the face of what's happening to him. The end of the novel is truly difficult to read; the suddenness with which it all ends mirroring the drop at the end of the hangman's noose which, despite all the reflecting he has done, was inexorably beside him from the moment he was pronounced guilty, secreted behind a hidden door, always waiting and never more than a few paces away.
Could this novel win the Booker? It's timely fictionalized history, so maybe! (Please don't spoil me I haven't looked up the winner yet).
TW for execution by hanging, murder, passing reference to rape.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Murder
Minor: Rape
marnie17's review
challenging
reflective
tense
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Murder, and Racism
ladymirtazapine's review
adventurous
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Blood, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, and War
Moderate: Alcohol, Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Islamophobia, Police brutality, and Violence
Minor: Colonisation and Transphobia
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
My reading experience with this one was influenced by the fact that I knew what it was about and how it ended before I started reading. Yet, despite being an adult and knowing how both books and the real world work, as I read I found myself hoping something would happen to change the trajectory of this story. Of course it didn’t.
The emotions this book elicited - especially the sadness, anger and disbelief- were expected. What I wasn’t necessarily expecting was to find such a rich character study of a colourful if flawed man. The setting - both time and place was also richly drawn and I was surprised by just how multicultural, yet non-integrated the area was in the early 1950s. Learning about Mahmood Mattan’s upbringing and travels, seeing the way he interacted with his wife, children and the wider community, as well as they way they interacted with him, ensured that I saw him as more than a victim of gross injustice. Paradoxically it also heightened my sense of that injustice because I could see him as a unique individual rather than a generic stereotype. He was not a blameless man and his faults arguably contributed to his conviction. But should justice only be available to those with a spotless character?
Final verdict - A heavy hitting character study highlighting a historical true case of institutional racism with the justice system. One that is sadly still all-too-relevant today.
The emotions this book elicited - especially the sadness, anger and disbelief- were expected. What I wasn’t necessarily expecting was to find such a rich character study of a colourful if flawed man. The setting - both time and place was also richly drawn and I was surprised by just how multicultural, yet non-integrated the area was in the early 1950s. Learning about Mahmood Mattan’s upbringing and travels, seeing the way he interacted with his wife, children and the wider community, as well as they way they interacted with him, ensured that I saw him as more than a victim of gross injustice. Paradoxically it also heightened my sense of that injustice because I could see him as a unique individual rather than a generic stereotype. He was not a blameless man and his faults arguably contributed to his conviction. But should justice only be available to those with a spotless character?
Final verdict - A heavy hitting character study highlighting a historical true case of institutional racism with the justice system. One that is sadly still all-too-relevant today.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, and Religious bigotry
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