Ultimately, I enjoyed this story very much. It became heavier than I had expected and dealt with some issues I am still processing. If you are looking for a mystery with what I would almost describe as a character study of Zimbabwe this is for you. It was intriguing and unusual and I can't wait to read more from Bryony Rheam!
Bryony Rheam's short story collection Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? has been nominated for the Outstanding Fiction Book category of Zimbabwe's premier arts awards, the National Arts Merit Awards. The awards celebrate the achievements of artists across a wide array of categories, from music, literature and visual arts to film, theater, dance, and journalism. This year, for the 22nd edition, a record-breaking 1,280 entries were received. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony, to be held in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo on 24 February.
Reproduced from https://fingaz.co.zw/searching-for-a-sense-of-security-and-continuity-in-zimbabwe/
‘Whatever Happened to Rick Astley’
by Bryony Rheam
amaBooks/Parthian 214 pp., ISBN 978-1-77931-095-8
Book review by DC Rodrigues
WHAT’S not to love about the rich baritone voice of Rick Astley, iconic English singer and pop sensation of the 80s? Fans of a certain age will remember ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and many other songs that were smash hits in England, Australia and America.
In 1994, after a string of hits, he disappeared from the scene, and in his own words, ‘slipped out the back door when no one was looking and no one cared’. But some people did seem to care, and it was his disappearance that inspired the title of Bryony Rheam’s recently published collection of sixteen short stories, ‘Whatever Happened to Rick Astley?’
Set in Bulawayo, Lusaka, London and Bristol, Rheam explores a number of themes and familiar situations that will resonate on many levels and in different ways with readers all over the world.
In ‘Potholes’ an admirable character, Gibson Sibanda, takes it upon himself to traverse the suburbs of Bulawayo, filling potholes with sand and small stones. Grateful motorists sometimes stop to reward him for his work. As an aside, when considering the number of potholes bedevilling the roads throughout Zimbabwe, the appointment of a dedicated Minister of Potholes might be considered a priority. Zimbabwe is not alone in this problem, and Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK, has allocated GBP700 million every year to deal with ‘the curse of potholes’. The fictional Sibanda takes his work seriously, and although he suffers some heartbreaking setbacks, is not deterred from his mission to make the roads of Bulawayo safe.
Although Bryony Rheam is a young woman with a young family, she seems to understand the plight of many of her characters who are elderly and widowed, struggling with a lack of money, and are separated from their children who have emigrated to the UK or to Australia.
The passage of time is a constant theme in Rheam’s stories. Says Prufrock, In TS Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’. In ‘The Rhythm of Life’, seasons come and go, and husband and wife, ex-farmers from Headlands, take bets every year on which day in November the first rains will fall. St Joseph lilies are collected and arranged in vases every February, and sweet pea and poppy seeds are planted in April. August winds regularly bring the threat of veldt fires, to be extinguished by buckets of water, kept at the ready. Anticipating these events creates what Rheam refers to as ‘the soft, undulating rhythm of life’, relied upon to provide ‘our sense of security and continuity.’ A new theme is introduced when the couple leave Zimbabwe, emigrating to an unnamed country where ‘the long journey to work’ is in ‘an overfilled railway carriage’. People have been emigrating for centuries, settling with varying degrees of success in their adopted country. Fossils found in the Cradle of Mankind outside Johannesburg, show that humans left their African homeland 80,000 years ago to colonise the world. While oppression, social marginalisation, or a desire to follow family members to other parts of the world may prompt migration, it’s safe to assume that some of Rheam’s characters abandon their social networks and culture for economic reasons.
William Lloyd, in ‘Last Drink at the Bar’, imagines ‘old age, senility and death’ in Zimbabwe, and ‘as much as he loved Bullies’ (Bulawayo), decides to obtain an ancestry visa and trace his father’s roots back to Cardiff in Wales. Failing to find a bar to his taste in Cardiff, or any drinking mates to replace Frikkie, Leonard and Rookie, he eventually finds himself again at Gatwick airport, this time heading north to a new life in Scotland.
There have been several waves of emigration from Zimbabwe, starting in 1965 with the declaration of UDI in Rhodesia; but it is the socio-political crisis that began in 2000 that has seen the number of Zimbabweans inhabiting the diaspora swell to over five million. The effect of this second wave of emigration provides the backdrop to this anthology, allowing Rheam to describe with skill and empathy through fiction, the lives of those who fled abroad and those who stayed behind.
Alternately referred to as ‘she’ or ‘Mom’, the narrator of the final story in the collection reminisces about ‘the good old days’ and imagines attending a Rick Astley concert with her boyfriend, Victor. Searching on Google she discovers that the pop icon of the 80s has come out of retirement, wowing thousands of fans at the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury earlier this year. Relieved that all is well with Rick Astley, ‘Mom’ now feels reassured and positive about her own role in life.
Through her characters, Bryony Rheam explores the themes of parenthood, ageing, lack of money, time past and time present, and immigration. Dispiriting as some of the stories may seem, her fictional characters are compelling and familiar; they also reflect a specific time in the history of Zimbabwe, and will provide compulsive reading for future generations.
If you'd like to watch Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up', click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
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Reproduced from www.britainzimbabwe.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BZS-Review_Dec21.pdf
British Zimbabwe Society Review: Issue 21/4 December 2021
Pat Brickhill on a Bulawayo-based detective story
All Come to Dust, by Bryony Rheam
Bryony Rheam has written a ground-breaking book – a captivating detective story set entirely in present-day Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Rheam explores a different writing style from her debut novel, This September Sun, and presents the reader with a story that is more than the traditional detective genre (and which perhaps embraces several genres). The novel opens as we meet Chief Inspector Edmund Dube shortly after a murder has been committed in the leafy inner suburbs of Bulawayo. Marcia Pullman, a wealthy but unpopular socialite, has been discovered dead in her bedroom. Dube, who is an apparently high-ranking policeman, is in on the case (despite a lack of co-operation from his colleagues) . Reminiscent of Agatha Christie All Come to Dust is reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s work, as Bryony Rheam leaves tantalising clues and red herrings, leading the reader down several cul-de-sacs. The initial pace of the novel was slow but I enjoyed the book more as the pace increased. Chief Inspector Dube meets Craig Martin on the day of the murder and commandeers his battered Renault to reach the scene of the crime. Martin is destined to play a central, sometimes comical role. The eccentric Edmund Dube appears even more of an enigma than Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. At times it was difficult to fully accept his role as the protagonist and, in spite of the difficulties he grappled with as a child and now as an adult, I struggled to feel compassion or much fondness for him. On the other hand, the oddball Craig Martin is far more developed as a character. He almost demands our attention as we find out about his struggles with life. Flashbacks reveal both men’s childhood experiences: Edmund Dube has grown up straddling two cultures, and feels unaccepted by both the black and white communities, while Craig Martin has survived an unhappy and sometimes tragic childhood.
I applaud the author’s decision to weave social commentary through her story. She refers to the realities, inequalities and prejudices familiar to anyone who grew up in Rhodesia and after 1980 Zimbabwe when, among other changes, facilities previously reserved for whites were opened to all races. Bryony Rheam shares her knowledge of the majestic Bulawayo landscape with striking portrayal of the everyday life and struggles that have affected so many Zimbabweans, especially in the last 20 years. She handles her subject sensitively, though strongly enough to make the reader aware that all was not well in society when Edmund Dube was a boy. This state of affairs affected not only his immediate family (his father goes to join the struggle and his mother has to support him by working a domestic worker in town) but also the country as a whole. Edmund, fairly unusually, is taken into the home and under the wing of a Scottish couple, the MacDougals, who employ his mother. They appear to do all they can to provide opportunities which, otherwise, he might not have had. Archibald MacDougal is also a policeman, a Detective Inspector, and this seems to provide the inspiration for Edmund’s later career choice. Another legacy of the MacDougals is Edmund’s unusual passion for fictional and television British detectives.
Very cleverly, the reader is left guessing, almost to the end of the book, as to the reason for the crime or identity of the murderer. Edmund Dube – like Poirot – gathers the potential murderers together and questions each in turn to identify the real culprit. Bryony Rheam’s story telling is gripping, very clever, sometimes sad, often amusing, but very occasionally I felt was not totally credible. I found the closing pages of the book as she tied up all the loose ends a little too neatly and the convenient connections slightly unconvincing – perhaps because she presented us with rather too many potential murderers and a victim without a single redeeming quality. While this may not be have been completely my cup of tea, I congratulate Bryony Rheam on her achievement and I am sure we have not seen the last of this Zimbabwean writer. I think fans of the traditional detective story will enjoy this book.
Reproduced from NB Magazine's January Crime Fiction Round Up
An intriguing Zimbabwean murder mystery, Rheam’s Bulawayo set crime novel is at once comforting for its cosy crime scenario but also disturbing for its subversion of the associated tropes creating a more complex and relevant read. The writing is easy, hinting at a golden age style tale of skulduggery, opening with a woman found dead in her bedroom, stabbed with a letter opener. However, this is Zimbabwe not Surrey and Rheam explores themes of racism and the colonial legacy and how those things haven’t changed enough while policing has got harder and poorer.
Marcia Pullman of 274 Clark Road does all her own cooking for her little social gatherings, there is one today. She deems the ‘girl’ Dorcas useless and the gardener, Malakai, had to be fired for incompetence and laziness. Food prepared, Dorcas sent out for the afternoon, Marcia lies down for a rest before book club. Later when the first guest arrives and Dorcas returns they are surprised there’s no sign of Marcia downstairs. Eventually venturing to the mistress's bedroom Marcia’s body is found.
Chief Inspector Edmund Dube of the Bulawayo central police station is grappling with another report, there are no Ss or Rs on his typewriter. He dreams of solving a real crime so, when a constable comes looking for super Detective Inspector Khumalo, Edmund jumps in to take the case. A white woman in the suburb has been killed and the missing gardener is the prime suspect. Edmund has to get a lift to the crime scene from a citizen outside the station. When Dorcas sees the commandeered driver she says he is the killer, she saw him argue with Marcia before, Edmund will have to follow that up. Meanwhile, Mr Pullman is indignant that the very clever detective Khumalo isn’t on the case but Edmund holds his ground. The strange thing is that Marcia was found inside a locked house and there are no unaccounted for keys. She was also dead when the would be killer stabbed her. A mystery indeed.
There are several interesting characters, a healthy dose of humour, often arising from misinterpretation, misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions. There’s also the serious aspects of modern Zimbabwe’s troubled society and its past trauma. This is genuinely subversive and fun.
https://nbmagazine.co.uk/the-verdict-january-crime-fiction-round-up/
All Come to Dust is published in Zimbabwe by amaBooks, and in the UK by amaBooks and Parthian Books, where it is available through www.parthianbooks.com/products/all-come-to-dust .
NoViolet Bulawayo wins 'African Booker'
(From http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/12/noviolet-bulawayo-caine-prize)
£10,000 Caine prize goes to story by Bulawayo writer
Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has won major African literary award, the Caine prize, for her short story about a starving gang of children from a shanty town.
Bulawayo's Hitting Budapest tells the story of six children in Zimbabwe, one of them pregnant with her grandfather's baby, and the journey they make to steal guavas in a rich area. Chair of the Caine prize's judges, the Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, said the story's language "crackles".
"Right now I'd die for guavas, or anything for that matter. My stomach feels like somebody just took a shovel and dug everything out," writes Bulawayo. "Getting out of Paradise is not so hard since the mothers are busy with hair and talk. They just glance at us when we file past and then look away. We don't have to worry about the men under the jacaranda either since their eyes never lift from the draughts. Only the little kids see us and want to follow, but Bastard just wallops the naked one at the front with a fist on his big head and they all turn back."
Matar said the gang in the story – Darling, Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Stina and Sbho – was "reminiscent of Clockwork Orange. But these are children, poor and violated and hungry". He praised Bulawayo's "moral power and weight", and her "artistry to refrain from moral commentary", saying that she "is a writer who takes delight in language".
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Bulawayo has just completed her MFA at Cornell University in America, where she now teaches. "The story came from this need to engage with the world," she said this morning. "I'm interested in what happens when two different worlds meet in a problematic way, I'm interested in honesty and in violence. These are real issues and real things."
Although her character Darling longs to live in America, and Bulawayo has lived in the US since 1999, the country "does not feel like home", the author said. "I miss home. I want to go and write from home. It's a place which inspires me. I don't feel inspired by America at all," she said.
The Zimbabwean writer was "excited" to win the Caine prize, which is worth £10,000 and known as the African Booker, counting Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee among its patrons. "It's one of Africa's biggest literary prizes," she said. Bulawayo has just completed a novel, tentatively entitled We Need New Names, which "explores some of the same themes as the story", and is working on a memoir, but has yet to find either a literary agent or a publisher. "I hope somebody finds the manuscript worthwhile," she said. Previous winners of the Caine prize include Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava, Sudan's Leila Aboulela and Nigerian writer Helon Habila, all of whom now have book deals.
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