Review and ten things I really like about BROTHERLESS NIGHT

Today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is to list ten things I like about a book. I decided to choose Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, a book I recently finished and haven't reviewed yet. I hope TTT readers will be patient with me as I review the book and follow along to the ten things I really like about it at the bottom of the page.

I became aware of Brotherless Night when it was selected for the 2024 Women's Prize shortlist and then ultimately won the prize. The story is set in Jaffna during the long, bloody Sri Lankan civil war. It is a heartbreaking story about a country and family coming undone by war and its consequences. The narrator is Sashi, a young aspiring doctor with four brothers. When her eldest brother is killed, two other brothers join the militant Tamil Tigers. Suddenly these brothers pull away from their family bonds toward another type of "family". This devotion to a cause further breaks the grieving, fragile family apart even more. 

Sasha herself seem to be conflicted in her devotion also. Shouldn't she support the Tamil Tigers who are fighting for the rights of her people? Yet she sees in them many cruelties and inconsistencies as the war progresses. At one point Sasha links up with a medical school professor and her husband to help document, in writing, all the atrocities occurring on both (all) sides which they have witnessed. 

I confess to being nearly completely unaware of the Sri Lankan Civil War, which lasted for over thirty years, ending in 2009 when the Tamil Tigers were finally defeated by the government forces, leaving thousands of victims in its wake. I am ashamed to confess this but I suspect I am not alone. It is so easy when one lives in the U.S. to become quite focused only on local or national news and to not focus one's attention on conflicts abroad unless they impact us in some tangible way, like economics. This is not something I am proud of. The Tamil Tigers were sure at least India was paying attention and indeed India did eventually send in a peace-keeping force to assist. These soldiers then became another bigger, more terrifying problem instead of bringing peace, they raped and pillaged. Ugh.

Brotherless Night was a brilliantly written and researched book. It draws on sixteen years of research by the author. One reviewer said it was brimming with "outrage and compassion." AYỌ̀BÁMI ADÉBÁYỌ, a 2024 Women's Prize judge, said Brotherless Night is "a powerful book that has the intimacy of a memoir, the range and ambition of an epic, and tells a truly unforgettable story of the Sri Lankan civil war."

Ten things I really liked about Brotherless Night:

1. This book was brilliantly researched historical fiction which made me feel like I was there in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, or at least the author was there, witnessing it all in person.
2. It drives home a point about loyalty and how being loyal to a cause can cause people to lose sight of other important aspects of their lives like family, neighbors community and schooling.
3. On a similar vein, the book shows us the horrors of war on all sides and questions the idea that there are good guys and bad guys. War is always bad for the people caught in the middle.
4. Sasha is a very complex character. She volunteers for the Tamil Tigers as a doctor because in a small way it may help protect her brothers, yet she also works in secret to collect evidence of the atrocities conducted by the Tigers on civilians. She is multifaceted. Readers see her grow and change as the story progresses.
5. It has the intimacy of a memoir yet the urgency of a news story. I felt called to lend support to the people Sri Lanka who still struggle today with inequality issues for the Tamil people.
6. Ganeshananthan's writing! Her prose are rich and descriptive. 
7. Here are a few examples:
• “But then the lights winked out across the peninsula, as boy after boy I had known and loved was extinguished or gone.”
• “You must understand: There is no single day on which a war begins. The conflict will collect around you gradually, the way carrion birds assemble around the vulnerable, until there are so many predators that the object of their hunger is not even visible. You will not even be able to see yourself in the gathering crowd of those who would kill you.”
• “I want you to understand: it does not matter if you cannot imagine the future. Still, relentless, it comes.”
8. The story was intense but I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook. To stop would mean I didn't care. And I do care, very much, because of this story.
9. About the audiobook, the narrator, Nirmala Rajasingam, did a brilliant job. Audible says this book is meant to be heard. I agree.
10. It won the 2024 Women's Prize for fiction. I have challenged myself to read two Women's Prize finalists every year going forward. I've completed that small challenged by reading Wren, Wren by Enright earlier this year and now the winner, Brotherless Night.

2024 Twenty Books of Summer Challenge

12 / 20 books. 60% done!

 

 

-Anne