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ALENTEJO BLUE follows Monica Ali's highly acclaimed novel BRICK LANE, which I picked up and read recently so I could compare these two works. In both novels she displays her knack for description and detail, and it's quite clear that she's a gifted writer. However, while BRICK LANE seems to have problems with structure and a meandering plot, it still shows off her talent for characterization. The structure of the current novel is much tighter but again showcases her gift for creating life-like characters in such great detail that it's easy for the reader to picture every nuance, every slight body movement of each character featured.
While I warmed up to BRICK LANE right away, it took me longer to get into ALENTEJO BLUE. Each chapter reads almost like a separate short story, in which at first the reader will not see any connection among the chapters, except for the fact that they take place in the same tiny village of Mamarrosa in Portugal. Some of the individuals are visitors on vacation, and others are expatriates from Britain. For the most part, however, the villagers are people whose families have lived in this part of the country for generations. We get inside their heads, and Ali writes and creates her characters without holding back. There are plenty of expressive words scattered throughout, such as "farting" and "snots."
What joins each chapter with the next is the mention of a man who is expected to return home after many years of traveling. Marco is the son they are all proud of, and they're waiting for his arrival as if in anticipation of royalty or a big time international celebrity.
In the meantime, life goes on and we learn about the little details in the villagers' lives, including a family of British expatriates who are in Portugal because they're running away from their previous sordid lives. They live in poverty and are clearly quite dysfunctional. They inadvertently get involved with another Brit, a writer, who becomes involved sexually with the two women in the family (mother and daughter) and one can imagine how that ends up. Another interesting character details the story of a young woman who is about to make a choice: whether to stay with her man in Portugal or move away from the village to take a job as a nanny in England. And there's the shop owner who learns he's about to get competition from an Internet café; he spends his time seething about the indignity of it all, feeling that change is not always good.
What I found interesting was the overlap in each chapter; as we get to know each character and slowly get the feel of the village, they surface in other chapters. By the end of the book, when Marco finally returns home, almost every villager will express their opinions (or lack thereof) of this big event, and the reader finally gets to meet this mysterious Marco who has been made into some sort of hero. While the story of Marco is a loose thread that weaves itself through each chapter, ending with a surprise homecoming and disappointing a lot of people, the book ultimately is a character study of the people who make up the village. Marco is mentioned in each chapter and anticipating his return are villagers whose pathetic existence is made even more so when compared to the infamous Marco, who supposedly made his fortune by leaving this small Portuguese town. Ali does a wonderful job painting each of these lives, describing them with great detail so the reader can imagine the smells, sounds and feel of living in this village that seems to be stuck in time.
I recommend ALENTEJO BLUE for its descriptive writing and the wonderful way Ali creates characters who jump out at the reader and off the page. I anticipate her next novel and will be curious if she chooses yet another country in which to set her story, as she does a great job of absorbing a culture and letting the reader get a small glimpse of it.
--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton (Ratmammy@lofton.org)
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