What’s It About

When Meena wakes one morning with snake bites across her chest she decides, in a panic, to leave Mumbai and travel to Ethiopia, the place where her parents met.  Her intention is to traverse The Trail a massive energy harvesting bridge that links India and Africa.  Thirty years previously, Mariama makes the decision to escape her violent slave master.  She stows away on a convoy of trucks heading across Africa – her destination, Ethiopia.

These journeys will converge in ways that are revelatory and unexpected.

Representative Paragraph

Meena’s story is set in the future.  Here’s a bit of background:

Africa is the new India, after India became the new America, after America became the new Britain, after Britain became the new Rome, after Rome became the new Egypt, after Egypt became the new Punt, and so on and so forth. Now we’re back to Punt. I’ve watched the African youth uprisings against land grabs or “colonization by invitation.” Mohini and I used to lie side by side and watch the reports roll in to the cloud. Addis Ababa, the city where my parents were murdered, is now the flagship city of Africa. Lagos is too big, Joburg is too white, Cairo is not really African, and so on. No one expected Addis to emerge as Africa’s sweetheart city. But it has.

Should I Read It?

Yes.

Trigger warning:  The violence, when depicted, is graphic.  There’s also a scene of child abuse.

Commentary

The Girl In The Road is a confronting novel written with an intensity and passion and visceral beauty that compels you to keep reading.  As the novel alternates between Meena and Mariama’s journey – both heading to Ethiopia but thirty years apart – Byrne with great care and deliberation reveals how both her protagonists are connected.  What’s brilliant is how she constantly wrong foots the reader (or at least me) with hints and suggestions as to what links these two women, only to introduce a moment, sometimes shocking in its impact, that undercuts all your assumptions.  And when the bond between Meena and Mariama is finally unveiled it makes perfect sense, even if it was never obvious while reading the book.

When I dashed out my thoughts about the novel on Facebook, I said I had conflicted feelings toward the book.  I noted my love of Byrne’s refreshing use of the unreliable narrator, a narrative cliché that she makes works.  But I also found the novel’s treatment of sex to be confusing.  In particular sex seems to be the trigger for violence in the novel.  The sex itself wasn’t violent, but after the act something brutal and savage occurs.  This happens on two occasions, both pivotal turning points for Meena and Mariama.  Given their importance, I couldn’t help but get this impression that Byrne was punishing her characters for discovering sexual intimacy and love.  But on reflection, and with help from a discussion I had on Facebook with someone else who read (and loved) the novel, I began to understand that Byrne wasn’t so much focussing on the sex and violence, but rather the idea of love and betrayal.  Not to spoil the novel, but it’s this sense of betrayal, and the guilt associated with it, that fuels Meena and Mariama’s journey.

And it’s not the books only theme.  This is very much a story about mothers and daughters.  Both Meena and Mariama lose their mothers at an early age – in fact in the case of Meena her mother was murdered when she was pregnant with Meena – and a good deal of the The Girl In The Road, in particular Meena’s story, is trying to discover and create some sort of bond, no matter how small, with a mother or mother figure.

Then there’s the religious symbolism.  I’ll be honest, much of this went over my head, it’s only something I became aware of once I read reviews on the interwebs which noted how all the characters were named after Saints and Prophets and Angels.  I should have picked this up.  Francis, Mohammed, Gabriel, Yemaya.  But I think I became so caught up in Meena and Mariama’s stories (and trying to second guess their connection) that the religious stuff became one theme too many.  Having said that, there is a definite spiritual feel to the novel, and on reflection Meena’s journey across The Trail has a station of the cross vibe to it.  The ending is also an almost mystical experience, especially for Meena as she goes through a sort of rebirth as she attempts to detox her soul with sea-water.  But while it might have passed me by, it does indicate a book that has several layers, the sort of novel where you can discuss a single theme, a single scene and feel you’ve only smudged the surface.

Themes aside, it’s important to note the Sfnal aspects of The Girl In The Road, because in all this talk about sex, daughters, mothers and religion, it’s easy to forget that this is a story that takes a stab at a near future that deliberately ignores the west and sees Africa in the ascendancy.  Byrne doesn’t encumber us with a future history mapped out with dates and important events, but she explains enough, provides enough back-story to give her future a sense of realism.  Critical to this is The Trail, a wonderful piece of hard SF engineering.  It’s a massive floating bridge that links India with Africa.  The Trail crosses the Arabian sea and was built to harvest energy from the sun and from the ocean.  Because I failed Year 10 Science I have no idea whether something like The Trail is possible or whether a concept like this has been the subject of New Scientist articles and the like.  But as with her future history, the Trail felt like something possible, like something that could be built a decade or so from now.  And some of the more gripping moments of the novel involve Meena’s attempts to survive on The Trail as she attempts to cross it – akin to climbing Everest, just heading in a straight (though unstable) line.

It could be argued that The Girl in The Road is trying to do too much.  Develop complex characters, deal with complex themes, and respect both African and South Asian culture.  Personally I think it’s a powerful and provocative novel, the sort that that sparks conservation and, like The Trail, wends and weaves its way through a variety of themes and issues.