Scan barcode
A review by millennial_dandy
The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai
4.0
Full disclosure: I am a Shyam Selvadurai stan, and so reviewing one of his works objectively is quite impossible.
As in his debut novel 'Funny Boy,' Selvadurai does a deep-dive into the struggle of being a young gay man in a society in the midst of roiling change and violence.
Family and identity (and the ways in which they entertwine) are at the forefront of 'The Hungry Ghosts' just as in 'Funny Boy,' and in some ways, 'Hungry Ghosts' seems to be its sequal.
At the end of 'Funny Boy' the protagonist is poised to flee from Sri Lanka to Canada with his family, and in 'The Hungry Ghosts' much of the story takes place in Canada after a mother and her teenage children flee to Toronto as Tamil refugees.
There is so much texture to this novel, it's hard to choose one particular thread to follow when reviewing it. The simplest way to whittle down what exactly the story is to say that it's about the intersections within a person's identity and how those intersections can be incredibly painful when they rub up against each other as a person tries to self-actualize.
Protagonist Shivan is half Tamil and half Sinhalese, he's gay, he's the favorite of his family's powerful matriarch, later on he's an immigrant, and in Canada he also has the classifciation of 'non-white' foisted on him. And all of these different 'hats' he wears throughout his life come with certain trade-offs.
In Sri-Lanka, being half-Tamil places him in a potential position of marginalization, and being gay even more so. But, because of the protection granted him by his grandmother, an incredibly successful real-estate developer and someone with connections to a local mafia-style leader, he is afforded a very easy path to success. However, that easy path increasingly alienates him from his mother and sister, and comes at the additional cost of being able to pursue an open relationship with his boyfriend.
In Canada, he is free of the corruptive influence of his grandmother, and in a better position to live more openly as a gay man, but at the cost of the high-class lifestyle he enjoyed in Sri Lanka. Additionally, in Canada, because he is classified as 'non-white' he is subjected to racism in his day to day life, and rejection within the local queer community. To combat his lonliness, he falls into a series of unhealthy relationships.
When it finally seems that he's found a way to balance his various identities and form a life he's satisfied with (even if he had to sacrifice a relationship with his family for it), a tragedy from his past threatens to burn it all down.
Reading 'The Hungry Ghosts' gives readers such rich insight into what Sri Lanka was like in the 80s, a really solid grounding in the multitude of conflicts going on in the country at the time and how they fed into each other. At its heart, it's a very poignant portrait of a family in crisis, and even manages on top of that to deftly explore the landscape of immigration and integration.
Selvadurai seems to understand that his work is in large part being consumed by a non-Sri Lankan audience (specifically by a white, western audience), and is careful to provide context where necessary, though never in a way that takes one out of the reading experience.
All this to say nothing of the man's writing chops. By god, can Shyam Selvadurai write. His descriptive writing is immaculate. Just as in 'Funny Boy' he has such good instincts for how to integrate tactile details into his scenes to build atmosphere and to set tone. And it's never in a cartoony 'it was a dark and stormy night' sort of way. It's in the fabric of the places Shivan takes us; in the smells, the textures, his perceptions.
When Shivan's family first arrives in Canada our focus is drawn to the most obvious differences: the winter weather they've never experienced, the style of the architecture. But the longer they're there, and the more Shivan's initial rosy optimism about the move is beaten down by his realizations of the new limitations he faces, he starts to notice the garbage kicked off to the sides of the roads, how run-down the house they're living in is (even though when they first arrive he and his family are impressed by and proud of their new home). And again, it's all very, very subtle.
A real triumph for Selvadurai, and a great place to start if you've never read one of his books.
As in his debut novel 'Funny Boy,' Selvadurai does a deep-dive into the struggle of being a young gay man in a society in the midst of roiling change and violence.
Family and identity (and the ways in which they entertwine) are at the forefront of 'The Hungry Ghosts' just as in 'Funny Boy,' and in some ways, 'Hungry Ghosts' seems to be its sequal.
At the end of 'Funny Boy' the protagonist is poised to flee from Sri Lanka to Canada with his family, and in 'The Hungry Ghosts' much of the story takes place in Canada after a mother and her teenage children flee to Toronto as Tamil refugees.
There is so much texture to this novel, it's hard to choose one particular thread to follow when reviewing it. The simplest way to whittle down what exactly the story is to say that it's about the intersections within a person's identity and how those intersections can be incredibly painful when they rub up against each other as a person tries to self-actualize.
Protagonist Shivan is half Tamil and half Sinhalese, he's gay, he's the favorite of his family's powerful matriarch, later on he's an immigrant, and in Canada he also has the classifciation of 'non-white' foisted on him. And all of these different 'hats' he wears throughout his life come with certain trade-offs.
In Sri-Lanka, being half-Tamil places him in a potential position of marginalization, and being gay even more so. But, because of the protection granted him by his grandmother, an incredibly successful real-estate developer and someone with connections to a local mafia-style leader, he is afforded a very easy path to success. However, that easy path increasingly alienates him from his mother and sister, and comes at the additional cost of being able to pursue an open relationship with his boyfriend.
In Canada, he is free of the corruptive influence of his grandmother, and in a better position to live more openly as a gay man, but at the cost of the high-class lifestyle he enjoyed in Sri Lanka. Additionally, in Canada, because he is classified as 'non-white' he is subjected to racism in his day to day life, and rejection within the local queer community. To combat his lonliness, he falls into a series of unhealthy relationships.
When it finally seems that he's found a way to balance his various identities and form a life he's satisfied with (even if he had to sacrifice a relationship with his family for it), a tragedy from his past threatens to burn it all down.
Reading 'The Hungry Ghosts' gives readers such rich insight into what Sri Lanka was like in the 80s, a really solid grounding in the multitude of conflicts going on in the country at the time and how they fed into each other. At its heart, it's a very poignant portrait of a family in crisis, and even manages on top of that to deftly explore the landscape of immigration and integration.
Selvadurai seems to understand that his work is in large part being consumed by a non-Sri Lankan audience (specifically by a white, western audience), and is careful to provide context where necessary, though never in a way that takes one out of the reading experience.
All this to say nothing of the man's writing chops. By god, can Shyam Selvadurai write. His descriptive writing is immaculate. Just as in 'Funny Boy' he has such good instincts for how to integrate tactile details into his scenes to build atmosphere and to set tone. And it's never in a cartoony 'it was a dark and stormy night' sort of way. It's in the fabric of the places Shivan takes us; in the smells, the textures, his perceptions.
When Shivan's family first arrives in Canada our focus is drawn to the most obvious differences: the winter weather they've never experienced, the style of the architecture. But the longer they're there, and the more Shivan's initial rosy optimism about the move is beaten down by his realizations of the new limitations he faces, he starts to notice the garbage kicked off to the sides of the roads, how run-down the house they're living in is (even though when they first arrive he and his family are impressed by and proud of their new home). And again, it's all very, very subtle.
A real triumph for Selvadurai, and a great place to start if you've never read one of his books.