Forest Gate

I've read a number of 'out of Africa and into Europe' books, but none surpass Forest Gate in presenting a more powerful, graphic, yet personal account of such trans-continental journeys. If ever we deluded ourselves that immigration from third to first world was any sort of easy street, Mr. Akinti sets us straight. The horror of the streets in London's estates piles atop traumatic memories, enough to try the sanity of even the most resilient of the dispossessed. The ending perhaps is just a bit too tidy and more than a little unlikely. But isn't that, the glimmer of hope that any one story can end well, that which keeps hope alive?

This novel really knocked me out. A story of Somalian immigrant teenagers in a high-rise London council estate, it reminded me of Some Dream of Fools about immmigrant Algerian teenagers in a high-rise project on the outskirts of Paris, and also of Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino, about immigrant Hmong teenagers in Detroit. The story thus is both personal and universal. The author is Nigerian, and now lives in the U.S., but he actually grew up in Forest Gate and must have seen a lot of what took place in the book. Worldwide, people are learning that the old rules and the old values don't necessarily work. The atmosphere is rife in all three of these stories and in reality, with gangs, guns and drugs. Ashvin, a Somalian boy, and James, his best friend, decide their only way out is through a suicide pact. They are going to put nooses around their necks and jump from the roofs of their buildings. Ashvin is killed, but James lives. He begins a relationship with Ashvin's sister Meina, but he's still in the same surroundings. His mother is a crack addict, his five brothers all are drug dealers, his father was shot and killed. He tells his half-sister, London takes no prisoners. But Meina, whose parents were murdered by Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia, disagrees. She escaped from a much worse environment. After a series of horrific events, the story ends on a hopeful note in a totally surprising place. James and Meina, despite all they have lived through, may have a future together after all. The book is not pretty, but it is well-written and takes you inside the newspaper headlines you read every day. Highly recommended.

Set in Forest Gate, one of the many council estates (ie, slums) in London, this is a fast-paced story that manages to be both horrifying and heart-warming. It is narrated by Meina, the sister of a 16 year old suicide victim, and James, the victim's best friend. Meina grew up in war-torn Somalia, James in Forest Gate. As the novel progresses, both tell their stories. What's striking is that although they grew up seemingly in different worlds, their experiences of horror and atrocities have not been terribly different. The novel makes a compelling and valid point that these council estates, intended to provide a safe haven for immigrants, can in fact perpetuate some of the very violence they were trying to escape. These are characters that make you sit up and listen, and care about what happens to them. I found myself holding my breath in places, rooting for them. The author succeeds in putting a very human face to the abstract issues we hear about (or sometime don't ever hear about) on the news. This is a very raw novel, and graphic in places. It wouldn't be nearly as powerful otherwise. It holds no punches. What amazed me is for all that, it also manages to inject a good amount of realistic hope, that some of the characters may be able to overcome the trauma they've experienced and make meaningful lives for themselves. Very highly recommended.

For those of us who think of Somalia as a land inhabited by roaming gangs and pirates, this hard, uncompromising story should remind us that as with every country we know little about, it contains a rich and complex society. Certainly it is full of terrible violence and danger, so much so that many flee, but these refugees who have ended up in the urban wasteland of East London have not necessarily improved their lot. In "Forest Gate" they face brutality and bigotry and have to deal with a new - though not totally unfamiliar - structure of territorial gangs. A group of brothers in the story, not just thugs but highly sophisticated and thoughtful, survive by drug dealing. Says the brother known as "5:" "In the space of five years I've accumulated over thirty bank accounts. There's just under sixty thousand pounds in each one. Why just under sixty?" His brother James knows "that's the limit an individual is allowed in this country without risking the financial authorities being contacted behind their backs..[]..Swiss bank accounts are overrated." But in the end the dealing exacts a terrible price on their souls. Successive chapters are narrated in various person's voices. Woven into their lives is Meina, the sister of Ashvin, a close friend of the group who commits suicide at the beginning of the story, and a white ex-cop and/or intelligence agent, Bloom, who is a sort of godfather or uncle to them all: he had been a friend to Meina's father in Somalia, before her parents were killed before her eyes. Then there is the ineffectual gay psychotherapist, delineated with mordant strokes, who is all to clearly smitten by James and dismissed for that reason, and the detective who plans to get the gang for their dealing but who is changed by events...Plenty of depth here. There is far too much going on to summarize here. The writing is sharp and crisp - there's a neat set of descriptions of Meina's fellow passengers on the Underground: one fat woman is "eating chicken from a greasy red box" and "had a handbook in her hand, 'Basic Nursing.' She'd be the last person whose face I'd want to see if I was sick." Looking over what I've written, I can see readers asking "So where does the "inspiring" come from?" Two sources: the reminder that every human being has depths that are denied by the blight of stereotyping, and the sense of a new dawn, in a new place, at the very end. A book not to be missed.

This coming of age novel is like nothing you've read before. Meina and her brother have seen and experienced unspeakable atrocities in Somalia. Her brother, Ashvin, witnessed his parents' murders, and Meina has been married off 6 times before the age of 18. A family friend and sponsor realizes that to survive the two must leave Somalia. He secretly takes them to London where they don't seem much better off. Ashvin becomes best friends with James, but both are touched by neighborhood gangs. Ashvin commits suicide while at the same time James's attempt fails. And this is just the beginning of the story... The novel is told from the points of view of Meina and James mostly, switching POV each chapter. It is an effective storytelling method that the author does very well especially as a first time author. The story is captivating, brutal at times, and heartbreaking. One cannot help but root for the teenagers' success, but just surviving seems difficult. The author's prose creates the feeling that we are reading a non-fiction account. I could not put the book down once I started and look forward to more from this author.