In The Dark, Hiding: Love after Love By Ingrid Persaud

This is a beautiful novel which evokes all sorts of emotions. Set in Trinidad and partly in New York City, it is written in a patois which has a musical lilt to it and which quickly becomes familiar. Likewise, although the dialogue is not punctuated, it is laid out in such a way as to make it easily readable.

The opening chapter is a brief but brutal exposé of an abusive household, where a father who likes his rum too much ‘only gave love you could feel…until death do us part’ - when Betty and her young son, Solo, are freed from Sunil’s ‘loving blows’.

The passage of time is a feature of the novel and sometimes it requires a doubletake to realise what has happened. In chapter two, the narrative has moved on several years; Betty, a conscientious and loving mother, is looking for a lodger to help pay for the upkeep of the house she owns. She finds Mr Chetan, a Maths teacher at the school where she works and so something of an unconventional family unit is created; a platonic friendship between two people who both treat Solo as a son. The adults share the cooking and the running of the house in an informal arrangement. The narrative switches between these three, emphasizing their tight connection and allowing the reader to share their thinking.

I felt a need to read it in chunks but in part three, the pace picks up, grief is exposed as a raw emotion and reconciliation comes only when there is understanding. The ending is both powerful and poignant and certainly worth the effort.Relationships (of any sort) are not always easy and forbidden relationships are even harder to navigate, as both Betty and Mr Chetan discover, in their pursuit of happiness, however short-lived their alliances may prove. When secrets are shared, however, there is sometimes a difficult aftermath. Mr Chetan has a dangerous secret which has shaped his life and Betty’s secret is a guilt she has to live with forever and once revealed, appears to be one which Solo, who was too young to remember or understand, finds hard to forgive.

As a result, a young Solo sets off for America, running away from his mother with whom he wants no more contact. He goes to New York, to his father’s brother, Uncle Hani, where he finds a different family, discovers life can be hard and misses Mr Chetan at least. As the years pass, Solo grows up and learns not everyone can be trusted; NYC has a very different vibe from his native Trinidad.

Despite their different choices, love finds a way in, but love means pain as well as ecstasy and our three principal protagonists with their distinct personalities, all come to know cruelty and prejudice, fear and love, loss and grief, all mixed with moments of joy. Persaud makes her characters real; they all have their strengths but also their flaws. You feel Solo’s hurt as he struggles in New York and sees a darker side of life. His answer is self-harm and the subject is sensitively dealt with. You also feel Betty’s loneliness and her anguish at their estrangement. Equally, we share Mr Chetan’s experience of both rapture and agony as he learns to acknowledge and embrace the hand life has dealt him.

Although Mr Chetan eventually moves into a place of his own and leads his own life, true to himself, his ties to Betty and Solo remain strong. Throughout the novel, we see that families come in very different shapes and sizes and it is the depth of the relationships which is important.

Mr Chetan has a dangerous secret which has shaped his life and Betty’s secret is a guilt she has to live with forever and once revealed, appears to be one which Solo, who was too young to remember or understand, finds hard to forgive.Despite the importance of family, which is emphasized throughout, this multi-layered novel explores loneliness of all types. It also focuses on bigotry, prejudice and living with past mistakes, a search for self and the discovery that escape is rarely permanent. Only death is final.

As a novel, the narrative is perhaps a little drawn out in places and I felt a need to read it in chunks but in part three, the pace picks up, grief is exposed as a raw emotion and reconciliation comes only when there is understanding. The ending is both powerful and poignant and certainly worth the effort.


Love after Love is published by Faber