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A review by bgg616
Happiness by Aminatta Forna
5.0
Although this theme was there under the surface, it wasn’t until the final pages I realized the novel asks the question “What is resilience”? London is the setting of this story. But it is not the London of commerce, tourism, history, royalty and wealth. Rather, it is the story of the layers of the city we don’t see. There are people and animals who are there but hidden; they survive by staying out of view. The animals in this story are foxes and the humans are immigrants. We can see them if we look, but we often fail to notice.
Jean is an American who has spent her life working with wildlife that humans see as pests and predators- coyotes in Massachusetts and now in London, foxes. Eventually this work ended her marriage and alienated her son. Her job is to see what others don’t, searching for clues that the animals she is studying are there. In London she is studying urban foxes, who have increasingly moved into all parts of the city.
Attila is an African from Ghana. I describe him this way because I have recently found Americans confuse South Americans from Guyana and people from Ghana. Attila is a striking tall figure, and a psychiatrist who specializes in the trauma caused by war. That these two people meet at all is extraordinary, but what ties them together is that they are both constantly looking beyond the surface of the city’s activity.
The immigrants in this novel are primarily Africans, many who are compatriots of Attila. When his niece and her son disappear, it is this remarkable network of Ghanaians in London who spring to action. Attila has worked in many countries including places in conflict in Africa, and remarkably he crosses paths with ordinary people he had met in those settings. Not just Attila, the psychiatrist, but these immigrants and refugees are brimming with humanity.
Jean is a woman who has ended up alone in life. One of the ways she earns a living is by constructing rooftop gardens. She does this not only for the well off, but for people, such as an agoraphobic woman, who crave the peace of the plants and natural activity of gardens. These are not the walled gardens of the London elite, built to exclude, but gardens that heal. Like the foxes that Jean hunts, these gardens are hidden on the roofs of buildings.
As different as they are, a renowned African psychiatrist who has spent his life in warzones, and an American, half Turkish, nomadic woman who is an advocate of urban wildlife, they share a common commitment to the marginalized in our world. This is a profoundly human story. It moved me in ways that will keep it in my mind.
The writer was born in Scotland, and raised in Sierra Leone and the UK. She is Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and currently a judge for the 2019 Giller Prize. Happiness is currently short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize, the Jhalak Prize, and nominated for the European Prize for Fiction. (https://aminattaforna.com/about-aminatta-forna.html) .
Jean is an American who has spent her life working with wildlife that humans see as pests and predators- coyotes in Massachusetts and now in London, foxes. Eventually this work ended her marriage and alienated her son. Her job is to see what others don’t, searching for clues that the animals she is studying are there. In London she is studying urban foxes, who have increasingly moved into all parts of the city.
Attila is an African from Ghana. I describe him this way because I have recently found Americans confuse South Americans from Guyana and people from Ghana. Attila is a striking tall figure, and a psychiatrist who specializes in the trauma caused by war. That these two people meet at all is extraordinary, but what ties them together is that they are both constantly looking beyond the surface of the city’s activity.
The immigrants in this novel are primarily Africans, many who are compatriots of Attila. When his niece and her son disappear, it is this remarkable network of Ghanaians in London who spring to action. Attila has worked in many countries including places in conflict in Africa, and remarkably he crosses paths with ordinary people he had met in those settings. Not just Attila, the psychiatrist, but these immigrants and refugees are brimming with humanity.
Jean is a woman who has ended up alone in life. One of the ways she earns a living is by constructing rooftop gardens. She does this not only for the well off, but for people, such as an agoraphobic woman, who crave the peace of the plants and natural activity of gardens. These are not the walled gardens of the London elite, built to exclude, but gardens that heal. Like the foxes that Jean hunts, these gardens are hidden on the roofs of buildings.
As different as they are, a renowned African psychiatrist who has spent his life in warzones, and an American, half Turkish, nomadic woman who is an advocate of urban wildlife, they share a common commitment to the marginalized in our world. This is a profoundly human story. It moved me in ways that will keep it in my mind.
The writer was born in Scotland, and raised in Sierra Leone and the UK. She is Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and currently a judge for the 2019 Giller Prize. Happiness is currently short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize, the Jhalak Prize, and nominated for the European Prize for Fiction. (https://aminattaforna.com/about-aminatta-forna.html) .