We Need New Names

Another book club selection. I found this book so painful to read. The lives of Darling and her friends are brutal, and Bulawayo tells the story with plainness and an attention to detail that does not spare the reader's squeamishness. On the other hand, Darling has a voice that is mischievous and curious, witty and imaginative, so that it is hard to stop reading about her. I had to take breaks from reading, but I always found I wanted to go back for more.

The story starts out in Zimbabwe, with Darling living in a shantytown, running wild with a bunch of other shantytown children. She's hungry and feral, but she knows who she is and how she belongs to her place. The second half of the book takes place in America, with Darling adjusting to life as a teenaged immigrant with an expired visa. She's aware that she's not at home, she's homesick, but she can't go back without giving up her chance to escape the brutal life she left behind. Both halves of the book are heartbreaking, but in a way the second half is more heartbreaking, even though it contains what we might think of as the hope that Darling might truly escape the brutality of her old life.

Most of the book is written in the voice of Darling, but there are a couple of chapters that are told from a collective voice. Although this book tells a painful story, there is a lot of pleasure in reading it, because of the precision and originality of NoViolet Bulawayo's writing.

Occasionally I come across a book that is difficult for me to say much about. I finish the book, put it aside, scratch my head as I try to piece together what it is exactly I feel about what I just read. Obviously, I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it. It just didn't resonate with me and I can't say why. We Need New Names was one of those novels for me. The pieces fit for what could've potentially been a great book, but it didn't gel with me.

Bulawayo writes some fantastic prose. She is certainly a talented writer and I expect her to continue garnering attention for her work in the future. I think she has some wonderful stories to tell as well. I think the problem for me with We Need New Names was that I never completely connected with the story or the characters. This may in part be the structure—the “novel” is akin to a collection of connected short stories. It may also be that the novel is essentially two parts—Darling in Africa, Darling in America—and though the two do connect logically, stylistically they are world's apart. Add to this that I never really connected with Darling, though I most felt close to her during her moment's of alienation in America.

So maybe I do know how I felt about the novel, at least in part. Maybe I needed to sit down, contemplate the novel, and write down my thoughts. To make clear my feelings—for my reader as much as myself—We Need New Names shows considerable talent, but the urgency of the work felt buried underneath too many threads. That's why it didn't work for me. Other readers may be able to sort through those threads, make something beautiful out of them. Me, the non-crafty one, I ended up with a beautiful mess of string. My bad.