Little Family, Ishmael Beah, author; Dion Graham, narrator
This novel is mainly about a diverse group of five characters who have been traumatized by the policies and violent practices of the government of their country. It is about how they cope with the issues they face everyday. They have no visible means of support nor family or friends to rely on. They seem to have lost everything. They take care of the needs of each other and share everything equally. Their backgrounds come out in fits and starts, but never seem to come out completely. They live together, hidden from society, foraging for food and supplies on a daily basis. Their memories are faulty and provide little to the reader about their pasts or how they came to be together. In bits and pieces we form our own opinions about what they have suffered that has brought them to this isolated area where they constantly have to struggle to survive a hardscrabble life.
While all the characters in the novel were interesting and clearly illustrated the terrible deprivation and poverty that had to be overcome daily, simply to eat, the character’s themselves were not clearly developed. The novel surely showed the depths to which they had to descend, for good or evil, to accomplish their purposes and goals, whether it was those working for the government attempting to yoke the population or those simply wanting to feed themselves. Still, I never fully identified with most of the characters. I did find that I sometimes admired those that were dishonest, because they seemed to have been pushed into the situation and had no other choice but to deceive or steal. Others, however, motivated by greed, were not admirable when they were discovered to be devious.
The pain and deprivation of those that struggled were the highlights of the novel as they fought to survive in a terribly unfriendly, corrupt environment. As they met people, they became more and more involved and influenced by the wicked ways of those in control, and they had to determine whether or not they would allow themselves to become corrupt or to excuse those corrupt because they seemed nice. Would they reject that world which was devoid of true and genuine feeling, when their blinders were pulled off, and they were no longer naïve? Two of the characters, in particular, find themselves embroiled in emotional conflict, one is totally duped and betrayed intentionally, and the other, quite possibly is betrayed unintentionally by someone with genuine concern, but no power to stop the evil from occurring.
I like this author’s style of writing and I found each of the characters was really interesting, but I wanted more information about them. Still, I really liked the story which painted an accurate picture of the trauma faced when a government is corrupt and the people have no power. The divide between the haves and the have-nots, the powerful and the powerless becomes greater and greater so that each dehumanizes their opposites and, eventually, each other. The names confused me as I was listening to the audio book. The narrator was superb, but I was unable to understand many of the names, places, expressions and even single words, because they were so unfamiliar to me. I went online and was able to learn more, but a reader who is not willing to expend that effort, should not get an audio, but rather, should read a print version.
As this little group becomes a family, hidden away from the rest of the world, they each have a job and position to fulfill. When the outside world filters in, they find that they, too, can be corrupted. Whether or not they allow this corruption to infect them and their group is for the reader to decide. I recommend the book highly, even though I found it a little confusing as it rolled out because it was very enlightening.