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AN OLIVE GROVE IN ENDS | Kirkus Reviews AN OLIVE GROVE IN ENDS | Kirkus Reviews

The road was patrolled by young and old: abtis arranged tables outside cafés, serving tea from pans; they peered into the faces of young hijabis, trying to find a likeness and match daughter to hooyo. Their sons and nephews stood outside corner shops and met at park benches, and together with my cousins, they were watched by the disapproving eyes of our respective elders. Announcing the arrival of a promising 23-year-old author whose work is wise beyond his years’ GUARDIAN His long term aim (as set out in the first chapter) is to buy a Clifton based mansion that his mother first showed him as a child – and his drug dealing and other criminal activities have got him close to that aim with nearly 80% of the price in cash; however just before the novel’s starts (and this is not a spoiler as it is revealed from the second chapter) Sayon kills someone to protect Cuba and is now desperately scrambling to cover this up so as to maintain his dream (and his relationship with Shona) This involves him effectively needing to make a breach with his own family and come under the influence of Shona’s father who, having always resented her relationship with Sayon, now sees Sayon’s salvation as his life project. Sayon’s long term girlfriend is Shona, now an up-and-coming music agent/producer she is also the daughter of a pastor – Lyle Jennings. Lyle’s Baptist church is more fundamentalist, and bible based than Errol’s more charismatic church and Shona is much closer to her parents than Sayon (in fact still living at home in a relatively idealistic home set up – note than we only really see Shona through Sayon’s eyes so we realise that her character and set up are idealised by him). At the heart of the novel is a love story between Sayon and Shona. Both are children of priests – one, Pastor Hughes, is the patriarch of an extended criminal family renowned for their violence, and the other, Pastor Lyle, though sceptical about his daughter’s boyfriend, is “a man who had dragged the darkness from his past”, and sees something of himself in Sayon. Pastor Lyle believes the yute is a candidate for compassion, even if his love for Shona will not cover the multitude of his sins. Sayon is also, believes his cousin Hakim – a proselytising Muslim – primed for religious conversion.You know man’s gonna live here someday, cuz,’ I announced. Cuba screwed his face; he didn’t mean to doubt me, but he wasn’t accustomed to dreams. ‘How you gonna buy dis yard, akh? You need white people ps to buy dis – big man ting.’ ‘Don’t watch dat,’ I told him. ‘Man’ll find a way, truss me.’ A remarkable debut, bristling with sharp prose and daring originality’ Nathan Harris, author of THE SWEETNESS OF WATER You know deh’s horses in the woods, init?’ I said, repeating what my mama had told me all those years ago. Sayon wrestles with his feelings for his girlfriend Shona, with her preacher father and his insistence on the Christian god, his cousin’s insistence on Allah, and with his best friend and cousin Cuba who he cannot imagine abandoning.

An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Goodreads

She would cycle into Clifton and across the Suspension Bridge just to look at the yard. There were other houses on the road, for it was narrow with many mansions, but it was this one that caught her eye. It was the furthest from the street, she explained, as far from the hustle and bustle as one could get. The book’s skilful, knife-edge climax has a cinematic tension, fuelled by the sad inevitability of a life lived on the streets. As Sayon’s trouble-making cousin Cuba says: “Once you’re fully in dis world only a few can leave fam.” Brutal in places but always beautiful, An Olive Grove in Ends is a bullishly brilliant debut by a young author with a very bright future. Incredible. The story is completely gripping and expertly paced, the characterisation is rounded and complex, especially the different relationships between characters. I'm in awe of how fully the nuances of the relationships come through in such small details that speak large. And the language - oh my - what an impressive range of registers Moses hits with such beauty in the lyrical bits, such music in the dialogue, and such efficiency throughout. Zero fluff. -- Melissa Fu, author of PEACH BLOSSOM SPRING Boysah, yuh better lef di poor gyal loose, Sayon. Maybe next time mi bump innah Marcia mi could tell er, dem deserve fi know exactly who deh date dem daughter.

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. – Matthew 7:13 – 14 Cuba is a character the likes of which I’ve never read before. He affects you to your core, especially his reactions to Sayons final piece of news confronting with what actually occurs (no spoilers here)!! It’s a novel about class and status as well as race and religion: this covers a great deal of socio-political scope. Was this the intention? I was actually in the Library when the cover of this book caught my eye. As it sat in the window, I was It’s written so beautifully, I love the characters, I love their interactions with each other, I appreciate how so many of them were flawed but (murder aside I guess) it wasn’t overbearing at all… I don’t know the story just WORKS bro!!!!

An Olive Grove in Ends - BookBrowse An Olive Grove in Ends - BookBrowse

I did feel like the reflections when living with the Pastor could have been shorter and I found my eyes skipping over some of that, but really not very much and that’s a weak criticism at best. Set among a richly drawn cast in a Jamaican-Somali community in Bristol, An Olive Grove in Ends follows the turbulent, often painful childhood and teens of Sayon, a drug dealer trying to keep his crimes secret from the pastor's daughter he's in love with. His engrossing first-person narrative, lyrical and slangy by turns, is the vehicle for a tough yet tender story of faith and friendship.And among a tale of a 11-year-old (going on about 21 at least compared to my schooldays) gangster in the making (while also intelligent) Sayon recounting tales of his various schemes and fights what are we to make of the insertion of this sudden passage of exposition The most exciting U.K. debut in years…Drug violence, religious strife, and a star-crossed romance play out in this Shakespearean tale set in a Bristol neighborhood of Caribbean and Somali immigrants called Ends…A gritty coming-of-age tale for the ages. This is a story, much like any other, of ends and beginnings. Like any story, it is hard to know where to begin. But I think it makes sense to start at home, or a home. Actually, it might be more accurate to call it a house; one that stood alone atop Mount Zion, overlooking Leigh Woods, the Avon Valley and the muddy river that wound beneath. Which brings me to my final issue – as with “Who They Was” I think some readers may struggle to sympathise with Sayon’s worldview and the didactic way in which it seems to justify say selling drugs to homeless people as exactly equivalent to a religious group feeding or clothing them, as well as the constant violence and criminal activities which can be justified due to injustices against past generations. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Headline An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Headline

I had more cousins than rivers had rivulets, and like a doting stepmother, Stapes took us all in. A few of my aunties had council houses on the offshoots, and I think I had a cousin or two in the high-rises that overlooked the toings and froings of the busy road. Those who didn’t live nearby could be found on Stapes more often than in their own homes – at Nanny’s, in Ladbrokes or one of the yard shops, buying cassava and plantain. My likkle cousins might be found at the blue cage playing ball, and the elders might be at one of the free houses tossing dominoes and talking about things they knew nutun about.In return, Sayon wants to give the people he loves the world: a house atop a grand hill in the most affluent area of the city, a home in which they can forever find joy and safety. But after an altercation in which a boy is killed, Sayon finds his loyalties torn and his dream of a better life in peril. If I was only rating the writing and not the plot or the characters I would have given this five stars. I think this author is definitely going places and I can see why this book has been nominated for awards, I just didn't personally 'get on' with it. If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us As with “Who They Was” or “Mad and Furious City” (and the book will draw comparisons to both and sits somewhere in the middle of them) one’s ability to appreciate the book will partly correlate with one’s ability to follow the language (which for me was not an issue but I think may well be for others). My cousin Winnie called the street itself home. She slept on the Baptist church steps and begged cigarette stubs from the gutter. She said she found the gutter more giving than the people passing, but maybe the people passing had nutun left to give.