A review by mathildekr
Brother by David Chariandy

5.0

This short yet intense novel depicts the lives of Francis and his younger brother Michael, growing up in a run-down neighborhood of Toronto with their Trinidadian mother, Ruth. Alternating between present day and early 1980s Scarborough, the compelling storytelling by reserved and caring narrator Michael leads to one summer night when police brutality escalates to the irrevocable. In this moving, powerful bildungsroman of tenderness, love, loss, and, as one character defines as "complicated grief", David Chariandy subtly and timely describes the consequences of white prejudices and institutional racism against non-white, immigrants communities, which echoes social movements such as Black Lives Matter. Indeed, this urgent novel matters, too.