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A review by half_book_and_co
Through the Leopard's Gaze by Njambi McGrath
4.0
3,5
When Njambi McGrath is invited to her brother's wedding, she is forced to confront the violence and trauma she experienced in her childhood. In this memoir, she lets the reader in on this journey as she shares what happened while she was growing up, recounts the wedding and the trials and failures with regards to reconciliation, and then dives into her family's (and thus Kenyan and specifically Gikuyu) history in order to gain more understanding for her parents. McGrath shows the rippling effects of colonial violence through generations and the depth of intergenerational trauma.
While this is a memoir I felt in parts reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel Purple Hibiscus. (In a comment conversation @introvertinterrupted brought up Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen as another fiction comparison.) But in the end, this here is non-fiction and has to deal with the messiness of life in very different ways. McGrath wrote a gripping book from these first pages of which I quoted here and which reminded me of an exposition in a symphony in which all the themes and melodies come up in the beginning. At some points, I wished for a bit deeper analysis and less clear cut conclusions. But this is, of course, someone's actual life and attempt to make sense of their experiences. So to be allowed to witness that is a privilege in itself.
Our family would have been perfect if brute history had not been the defective gene embedded into our being, rendering us incapable of normal functionality. We would have been fine if we were not Gikuyu and if the Gikuyu had not been farmers. It would have been fine if the white man had not coveted our land and thrown my tribe into concentration camps. My family would have been perfect if Cucu Hernia had picked a side: either support the white man like her brother Guka Robinson or fight the white man like her other brother Guka Mwaura. If she had picked a side Cucu Hernia and her three daughters would not have been amongst the women held on open fields that slowly became concentration camps which they built with their bare hands.
[...]
Of course, I would never have dared look into the dark well of my past; rousing ghosts from within. A journey that would leave me on the verge of a nervous breakdown, threatening to ruin my marriage and everything I ever worked for. The genie would have remained firmly trapped in the bottle, if Wainaina had not disturbed my peace by inviting me to his wedding
Me and everyone else.
When Njambi McGrath is invited to her brother's wedding, she is forced to confront the violence and trauma she experienced in her childhood. In this memoir, she lets the reader in on this journey as she shares what happened while she was growing up, recounts the wedding and the trials and failures with regards to reconciliation, and then dives into her family's (and thus Kenyan and specifically Gikuyu) history in order to gain more understanding for her parents. McGrath shows the rippling effects of colonial violence through generations and the depth of intergenerational trauma.
While this is a memoir I felt in parts reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's debut novel Purple Hibiscus. (In a comment conversation @introvertinterrupted brought up Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen as another fiction comparison.) But in the end, this here is non-fiction and has to deal with the messiness of life in very different ways. McGrath wrote a gripping book from these first pages of which I quoted here and which reminded me of an exposition in a symphony in which all the themes and melodies come up in the beginning. At some points, I wished for a bit deeper analysis and less clear cut conclusions. But this is, of course, someone's actual life and attempt to make sense of their experiences. So to be allowed to witness that is a privilege in itself.