Losing the Plot

Derek Owusu is a poet whose simultaneously searing and experimental debut novel “That Reminds Me” was the deserved winner of the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction (a prize he judged this year picking an excellent shortlist and outstanding winner in “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies”).

I said in my review of that novel: “the book is written in a series of .. short verses, told in a mixture of present and past tense, each representing a fragmentary and impressionistic memory, necessarily distorted through the acts of remembering and forgetting. These can on a first and even second read (on finishing the book I went back and immediately read it a second time) seem jumbled and confusing, but they accumulate to a picture of [the protagnoist] who [they are], what [they have] become, what [they believe] about [themselves] and the formative experiences and traumas that have lead to that position” and that reminds me (sic) of this equally experimental and equally impactful novel also.

The novel is in effect an imagined family biography of the story of Owusu’s Mum, an attempt to understand her life and her journey from her arrival in the UK (from Ghana) up to the present day. An epilogue contains the 2019 transcript of what Owusu calls a “factless interview”, a rather fruitless attempt to “give me everything I needed to write and understand my mother’s story” which falters in the face of his mother’s vague or deliberately evasive answers.

It is written in 60 short (sometimes very short) chapters, arranged in three sections - Landing, Disembarking, Customs and Immigration. Mainly written from the viewpoint of his mother, but with other voices including his own in the main narrative.

As with his previous novel the style is fragmentary and impressionistic, and the reader’s (or at least this reader’s) understanding accumulative rather than immediate as we see something of his mother’s experience of: her flight and arrival, London (living in a bedsit in the Tottenham area), work (in various cleaning jobs), relationships (including two marriages), motherhood (a son and a daughter), church (Charismatic) and English society as well as her memories of her childhood in Ghana and her experience of exile from her original home.

The chapters are in a mix of English and untranslated Twi – the English itself often a part translation of Twi (an afterword says “The languages spoken by the protagonist are English and Twi. These translations are approximations and a lot of their meaning and changing connotations may be lost”). Untranslated Two words are typically followed by a footnote indicator, with the footnotes (sometimes but not always related) allowing the direct voice of the son as he sets out his own memories of his mother, her behaviour, attitudes, fears and strengths.

Another great novel from one of the best literary talents around. I would hope to see this on the Goldsmith’s shortlist next year and would love to see it on the Booker longlist also.

‘She tightens and folds the ntoma under her arm
while eyes from an incepting mind float around the banks of London,
resting between the respite of touching blades, bones,
weightless, she walks without pause, without her lord–a circlet fades in and out on her child’s temple.
She converses about the shops, what’s inside and what she’d like,
with much reflecting as they walk,
hoping her baby will recall and when he grows will then decide.
His eyes, buoyed or wide, her voice now has somewhere to reside.’

Losing the Plot is Derek Owusu's 2nd novel after the brilliant That Reminds Me which deservedly won the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize, for most outstanding first novel.

Like that novel this is told in a distinctive style with vignettes in the form of powerful and affecting text, a hybrid of prose and poetry, and with an autofictional element, and like that this is a novel that repays thoughtul reading and re-reading, with more to say that most books that are multiples of the word count.

Losing the Plot focuses on the experience of the narrator's mother, an immigrant from Ghana into the UK, an imagined history of the author’s own mother. There are three sections titled Embarking, Landing and Customs and Immigration (although these labels are more thematic, the timespan embraces her life in the UK), plus an Epilogue with the narrator/author(?)’s mother from 2019 in the form of “a factless interview”, which rather explains the need to fill in the large gaps with fiction.

An interesting and distinctive decision Owusu has made is to leave words in Twi, typically interspersed in the mother’s speech with English, untranslated, as he has explained:

“I made the creative choice not to translate any Twi in my book and also decided against a glossary. So many reasons for this but mainly it's because many West African kids didn't have any of that either. Our parents regularly refused to teach us. Had to figure it out. Welcome”

There is no glossary but they do often come with footnotes, however rather than translations these are direct interventions into the story by the narrator prompted by the word, although sometimes with the translation implicit in the response ('Mi ne sika' prompts a comment about his mother's precarious finances, and a 'Korɔmfoɔ', when someone steals her seat in a doctor's surgery, the narrator's own recollection of how he used to steal from her). For example the first from a scene of the narrator's mother on the plane to the UK:

“To her right, she fights not to be consumed by the compulsion to look, losing so many times the obronis sitting in the next aisle of broken seats may assume she’s inviting them over, those twisting and polishing her tongue,* blowing grammar without savouring the sound, a switched tempo, contorted into another language.”

The corresponding footnote:

“* Okay, so do I just start speaking? Alright cool. Yeah, don’t worry, I got one. Aight, one time we were en route somewhere in Tottenham. My mum bumped into some old friend in the back of the bus. They raise their voices, doing all of that, eiiis and phrases in Twi. Some bald guy in front of us, head shiny like ivory or something, glistening, but I deeped it start turning red, bare patches–man was frustrated. He kept turning around until my mum’s friend, Auntie, everyone is an auntie, really, flicked her nose up to him and said something, can’t even remember what. I thought she recognised him. My mum, who also moved like she knew him, said his name: ‘Who? Obroni?’”

A latent theme in the novel is the psychological trauma of moving to a foreign country (There was one time when I tried to convince my mum that she had depression), one where one perhaps never feels, or rather is allowed to feel, one belongs, and the impact this can have on future generations:

“By the grace of God mi krataa be ba,‡ there’s no guarantee, but for this child, so he can sleep well and me too I can rest, for this handsome boy.

‡ My mum has been in the UK for over thirty years and she still struggles to see herself as British, the way she sees it always changes from one day to the next but she has no problem telling me I’m not Ghanaian. She became a citizen before I was even born, been married twice to ‘Englishmen’, probably just British citizens to be honest, and has lived here longer than me, and yet . . . I know you see what I’m saying.”

This is, as I've said, a book that will repay multiple readings - I immediately re-read it on completion - as I feel I've only scratched the surface so far (for example the mother’s religious faith is another key theme). I suspect this will also make for a wonderful audiobook as there a rhyme and rhythm to the prose poetry that at times requires the reader to vocalise it (not my usual approach to reading).

“Briefly, to see him smile she’ll remember it was him, and she’ll stretch her arms, an embrace with no charm, ingratiated with this terra, hell, an immigrant mother who will die here alone and can only rise with the body of work her son has done well.”

Another wonderful novel and one I hope to see feature on the 2023 Prize lists.

In January 2020, I read Derek Owusu’s debut novel (which went on to win the Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction). In my review of that book, I noted that <i>”It isn’t often…that the first thing I do on finishing a book is turn back to page 1 and read it again.”</i> I note this here because this is almost exactly what I did with this new novel.

Another thing I noted in my review of Owusu’s first book was that <i>”…the structure of the novel is unusual and it isn’t always easy to follow the narrative, if narrative is even the right word to use.”</i> This also is true of this new novel, perhaps even more so than the first. Both books work by impression, by an accumulation of details that the reader absorbs almost subconsciously whilst reading the poetic prose language that can often be difficult to parse paragraph by paragraph. My advice would be to go with the flow: it’s short book and I think the best way to read is possibly to hide yourself away somewhere and let it wash over you - when you get to the end, you will have more of a story in your mind than you thought you had.

The book’s blurb tells us what this story is: it is an exploration of the author’s mother’s life from when she arrives in the UK from Ghana up to the present day. It is presented to us in a series of very short chapters which often include phrases in Twi which themselves often lead to footnotes that take us to the voice of a son almost dictating memories of his mother.

On first reading, I felt that this was a great book but I didn’t understand it properly. On second reading, I am even more convinced it is a great book even though I still would not claim to have understood all the individual paragraphs. But, as I say, I don’t think you need to understand individual paragraphs - you need to let them in and let them work their magic.

In Losing the Plot we follow the narrator’s attempts to understand his mother and her life.

Told through a series of vignettes, I adored how swirly and lyrical the prose was. The footnotes offered a switch in style, feeling very candid and sometimes proper jokes! I very much enjoyed the way the tone of the novel oscillated between emotionally raw and playful.

I’ll definitely be purchasing a copy of this for a reread when it’s published!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for access to a digital proof of this novel in exchange for my honest review.