A Book Review of Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

I had the good fortune to see the author at a festival in Madrid, and his reading and explanation of the book convinced me to buy it.

It is a beautifully written work. What stood out to me - perhaps unsurprisingly considering that it is a gothic, post-colonial story - is that only one passage has a tinge of hope. This occurs midway through when one of the characters describes how moths look for the moon, and every time they self-immolate in candlewick, it is because they are moved by the hope that the candlelight is the moon. It's an outlier in the generally magnificent prose, and even that has a melancholy about it that is tremendously moving.

Hungry Ghosts, by Kevin Jared Hosein

Grinding proverty

The grinding poverty creates a kind of inertia for the characters, yet Kevin Jared Hosein manages to create a few narrative threads that never fail to hold your interest. Like in some of Marquez's books, the idea that being poor is just, well, tiring, is the strongest aspect of the story. People have hopes that threaten to be dashed, and they make mistakes and are blinkered because they are so desperate. Even the vilest characters are given an origin story in small sections that intersperse the book - mini, revealing bios that shine a light on why some of them are so flawed. Hurt by random, overpowering forces, chaos is the opposing force that complements the inertia.

The book is accessible because the themes are universal, particularly in countries that have been colonized. And Hosein world builds with the care and detail of a historian. I believe the reader will come away from this book with genuine knowledge of how people live, and what their particular reality is. How often does a novel really take the time to flesh out its world?

Intimacy

Finally, the sex in the book is well-handled, when it's alluded to or when it's more direct. I have seen too many books try both techniques and fail miserably. There is either a coyness bordering on bad writing, or an abandon that is just cringey. In this book, the inferred moments are beautiful in their own way (finding a space in the barrack to be intimate) or, when tackled head-on, garlanded with surprising observations and details that make the act feel like something unique between the characters and real.

I highly recommend it.