Girl, Woman, Other

It is easy to write these adoring words for Bernardine Evaristo’s book:

Her writing is

simply

beautiful.

We are taught from an early age how to write a sentence. Joining words, phrases and causes together, sentences act to open and close a thought. In true artist form, Evaristo reimagines sentence structure, finding rhythm and breaking free of the sharp ending of punctuation, notably the period. She describes her writing style in her award-winning novel, Girl, Woman, Other, as fusion fiction. Words flow onto the page; phrases in this style convey what may take many more paragraphs to express. Crafting this form allows Evaristo to jump from present to past to present again, unfolding a character’s story in an impressively efficient 30 pages.

Girl, Woman, Other is the story of twelve predominately Black British womxn. (The term womxn, as Evaristo explains includes women of color, queer and trans people.) The book begins with Amma, a playwright awaiting her opening night at the National Theatre in London. This performance marks her career moving from the fringe to center stage. We are introduced from her experiences and memories to her daughter Yazz and her best friend Dominique, who later merit their own sections, continuing Amma’s story loosely in the background.

Yazz, a Gen Z university student with an intellectual girl squad, was the personality most loved by our book club. For me, Dominique, Amma’s theatre company partner, remains my favorite. Her story travels from London to the United States to follow her girlfriend, Nzinga; however, their romance quickly goes from passionate to abusive, once settling at their cabin at Spirit Moon, a wimmin’s land community. My eyes leapt from page to page, as Dominique looks to exit the relationship and re-discover herself again.

As the story propels forward, characters interact with each other, in sometimes obvious or ambiguous ways. The characters’ lives span across age, class and political views, forming a diverse cast of characters, with their own ideas of womanhood. As characters lives overlap across Britain, Evaristo’s novel reminded me of the film, Paris, Je T’Aime. Funny enough, Natalie Portman, an actress from this film, recently interviewed Evaristo on this very book!

Girl, Woman, Other was the first of The Immigrant Book Club discussions. For a reading guide and discussion questions, click here.