REVIEW: “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernadine Evaristo
If, like me, you’re not usually one to mind the Booker Prize shortlist, Girl, Woman, Other might not have crossed your radar until the controversy surrounding its victory hit newsstands in October of 2019.
In a landmark year, Booker judges made history twice over: firstly, in making Evaristo the first black woman to win the prize since its inception in 1969, and secondly in breaking their own rules to name Margaret Atwood co-winner for The Testaments. Head judge Peter Florence backed the decision that saw the two authors split the cash prize of £50,000, when deliberations dragged for five hours with no standout winner: “The more we talked about them, the more we found we loved them both so much we wanted them both to win”.
Of course, one could argue that if the totally objective criteria by which we assess the value of works of literature do not yield a clear winner, and the competition rules explicitly prohibit ties, it might be an idea to not spotlight the literary giant whose hugely successful work is about to hit season 4 of its TV adaptation, and rather celebrate the lesser-known author who’s putting her half of the winnings towards her mortgage-
-but what am I saying? That kind of debased subjectivity has no place in the literary world.
As much as I’d like to continue to bash the Booker judges, to dwell would be to subject Bernadine Evaristo to further injustice, because Girl, Woman, Other is truly fantastic.
The novel follows the loosely interconnected stories of 12 characters, the majority of whom are black women, oriented around the opening night of a play penned by Amma Bonsu, lesbian anarchist turned “establishment with a capital E”, and grappling with her conviction that systems can be changed from the inside. Each character has their own chapter, and while their lives overlap in myriad ways (the connection between mother and child, teacher and pupil, radical feminist and twitter critic) their experiences differ greatly, as Evaristo spans generations, backgrounds and sexualities in a novel that celebrates the diversity of modern Britain, without downplaying the complexity of the individuals it is comprised of.
One of the few criticisms I’ve heard levelled against the novel highlights its experimental narrative form. Through what Evaristo calls “fusion fiction”, Girl, Woman, Other eschews conventional punctuation, as full-stops appear only in the final sentence of each chapter, and speech marks are done away with entirely. Such experimentalism could be read as gimmicky or alienating, and I’ll confess that there were moments - particularly in the speech-heavy first chapter - where I found myself lost in the unmarked dialogue and combing backwards through the text to find an indication as to who was speaking. That said, for the most part, I enjoyed the freedom afforded by the lack of form, as the narrative lapses into a sort of amorphous free-verse that serves to better differentiate the 12 voices of the characters: it seems fitting to hear unfamiliar stories told in an unfamiliar way.
While readers are likely to find their own favourites among the cast of 12 (special mention goes to the cringingly familiar Yaz, idealistic and outspoken student ready to change the world her elders broke) the standout chapter has to be ‘Megan/Morgan’. Non-binary Morgan’s exploration of what gender means to them is a refreshing perspective that doesn’t often find its way into “mainstream” fiction, as Evaristo charts their journey from confused youth to self-assured trans educator and activist. I feel inclined to deduct points for the message-speak that plays a significant part in this chapter, through Morgan and eventual partner Bibi’s online discussion of feminism and gender identity, which - to my ears - always sounds a little stale coming from any writer over the age of 30. That said, Evaristo is more than redeemed by her depiction of intergenerational relationships both in this chapter, between Morgan and nonagenarian Hattie, and throughout the book, handling differing perspectives on race, gender and sexuality with a grace and nuance that is, for me, the real triumph of the novel.
Being a cisgender woman myself, I can’t speak to the accuracy of Girl, Woman, Other’s portrayal of non-binary identity; however, I am aware of a frustration within that community pertaining to the wrongful perception of AFAB non-binary people as “Woman-lite”. In turn, it feels worthwhile to consider whether the framing (and naming) of Morgan’s chapter within a compilation of stories about cis women serves to reinforce that perception, or if the fact of its inclusion outweighs the potential problematics. As ever, representation feels like compromise.
Ultimately, the word I keep returning to with Girl, Woman, Other is “sonder” - a neologistic gem offered up in John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and defined as “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own”. To read Girl, Woman, Other is to experience this phenomenon over and over again, as Evaristo plays off of the reader’s compulsive empathy for the protagonist by refocusing the lens the instant we get invested in their story. In turn, the concept of the “background character” is undone by the knowledge that the next chapter’s protagonist exists somewhere in current one. In decentering the protagonist, Evaristo makes space for the stories of those who are so often marginalised in fiction and in real life, promoting empathy but also culpability : it is perfectly possible to be the “hero” in your own story and the “villain” in someone else’s, as Girl, Woman, Other serves to reminds us that our actions do not exist in a vacuum.