Soucouyant

by David Chariandy

A “soucouyant” is an evil spirit in Caribbean lore, a reminder of past transgressions that refuse to diminish with age. In this beautifully told novel that crosses borders, cultures, and generations, a young man returns home to care for his aging mother, who suffers from dementia. In his efforts to help her and by turn make amends for their past estrangement from one another, he is compelled to re-imagine his mother’s stories for her before they slip completely into darkness. In delicate, heartbreaking tones, the names for everyday things fade while at the same time a beautiful, haunted life, stained by grief, is slowly revealed.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, School, Historical Fiction, Read For School, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

David Chariandy is a Canadian writer and one of the co-founders of Commodore Books.

His debut novel Soucouyant was nominated for ten literary prizes and awards, including the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (longlisted), the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize (longlisted), the 2007 Governor General's Award for Fiction (finalist), the 2007 ForeWord Book of the Year Award for literary fiction from an independent press ("gold" winner), the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book of Canada and the Caribbean (shortlisted), the 2008 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize of the British Columbia Book Prizes (shortlisted), the 2008 City of Toronto Book Award (shortlisted), the 2008 "One Book, One Vancouver" of the Vancouver Public Library (shortlisted), the 2008 Relit Award for best novel from a Canadian independent press (shortlisted), and the 2007 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award (shortlisted).

Chariandy has a MA from Carleton and a PhD from York University. He lives in Vancouver and teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University.

His second novel, entitled Brother, is forthcoming from McClleland and Stewart.

Reviews

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Mother] was smiling at me, and I caught it. I caught her reading me all the way through. The person I’d become, despite all of her efforts. A boy so melancholy, melancholy despite the luxuries that she’d worked so hard for him to enjoy. A boy moping for lost things, for hurts never his own….

For me, this excerpt from the novel describes it so well. It is a melancholy story, sometimes stretching into tenderness and caring, yet with melancholy underlying it all.

The young man who narrates most of the story and his brother Roger were born in Scarborough, Ontario. Their parents met and were married there. Their mother, Adele, was originally from Trinidad, and his father, Roger, was originally from Madras (now called Channai) on the Bay of Bengal.

When the boys are still young, Adele begins to show symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and I can only imagine the impact that would have on young, impressionable boys. What could they possibly compare their own childhood experiences of “Mother” to when they had no other examples to draw from?

As I’m sure all of us have experienced at some point in our childhoods, children can be cruel. In some cases, that cruelty extends well into later-school years, and even beyond. Whether it is colour, religion, intelligence vs ignorance or geeks vs jocks – there has always been some form of separation, of ‘us against them’ or ‘us against him/her’ with young people who are still finding out that such a thing as conscience actually exists in the world.

This novel isn’t just about that, however. It is also about making a transition between cultures, What parts will blend? What parts will clash? Which ones are safe to cling to and which ones could bring about our downfall?

The young man returns to his mother’s home 10 years after leaving at age 17. He feels compelled by a need to care for his mother in her elder years, and he also wants to fill in the gaps in stories he recalls of Adele’s earlier life.

The writing is exquisite – both straightforward and poetic, and I found it very appealing. I also was incredibly moved by this story and how well past and present are woven into a whole piece of cloth. This novel was nominated and short-listed for many major prizes, and deservedly so. Highly recommended!

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soucouyant is a very beautifully-written book, and my second by David Chariandy (Brother being the first). Chariandy set both books in Toronto's Scarborough area, although Soucouyant takes place right on the Scarborough Bluffs.

Soucouyant is an unusual book, and I can only try to describe it as kind of a mesmerising blend of Caribbean fantasy and folklore, paired with poverty, trauma, and disorganized thinking. That may not sound like a great book, but it was interesting and I quite enjoyed it.

4 “All-families-are-at-least-a-little-dysfunctional" stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A night-haunting spirit from Caribbean folklore creates disturbing echoes in suburban Toronto.

Beautifully written. I've read it a couple of times. The prose is lyrical but tight. The author hits that fine line between social realism and magic realism, and everything comes together.

Chariandy is a force to be reckoned with, as he has shown in his subsequent works.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soucouyant has a subtitle: A Novel of Forgetting. The thing is, it's more about remembering. And about the kinds of love carrying the tenderest and most caring freight. A soucouyant, the reader is told, is an evil spirit in Caribbean folklore. In a novel turned on its head, it can also be an object of love. I liked this lovely little novel a lot. It's compassionate and loving, and though it's a first novel written by a very young man, it's full of the understanding and strength that swell to wisdom in the reader's mind. Chariandy carefully and skillfully details character and the present as if adding dolce strokes of a bow bit by bit while leading up to the crescendos of memory making up the final chapter. Because it's a novel about a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease and the son who cares for the difficult reality of her everyday while nursing the shards of her recollection, it's a novel about forgetting. But it's more about how we can overcome the deteriorations of the mind to reach back into the most tender regions of our memories. That this edition by Arsenal Pulp Press is handsomely made, too, adds to the overall satisfaction of the read. It's a pleasure to sit with something so beautiful, both to hold in your lap and to hold in your mind.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very few flaws, (and others may disagree that there are any at all); beautifully written.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

So happy I read this book. It is just beautiful in so many ways.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I watch the wind blowing ghosts into the drapes. I dream, close to waking, of the sound of footsteps in the air above me."

Soucouyant is told from the perspective of a young man, who returns home to care for his aging mother who has been living with dementia for years. It is a story about the immigrant experience in Canada, about racism, about family, and about forgetting. The writing is lovely, but I found the ending a bit information heavy? I would have liked if more of that information was sprinkled throughout the novel.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly loved it but not sure the last 1/4 flows that well with the first 3/4. Beautiful writing.

[Bre F · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What do you do with a person who one day empties her mind into the sky?"

This was such a beautifully written story and for me, read like poetry. Set in Scarborough, the author explores interconnectedness between racism, family ties, and experiences of dementia as each character slowly develops. The ending felt slightly rushed, however I still enjoyed it. I will be definitely be reading more of Chariandy's books.

[Debbie Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

--February 19, 2025---
Re-read for my whiteness and settlers identities course. Taking a Can lit lense and whiteness lense over-laps quiet a bit of the topics that we have covered. I am excited to see what new discussion we can bring out with Chariandy's Soucoyant and build off off old discussion from previous class.

---March 3, 2024--
"Memory was a carpet stain that nobody would confess to"
Read Soucouyant by David Chariandy for my Can Lit class and it honestly took me a while to get into it not because of the writing but due to my mental exhaustion. This book was very interesting to read, considering all the other texts we have read in Can Lit. I really enjoyed how fragmented Chariandy's writing was, and the motif regarding memory and forgetting with the Protagonist being nameless really was just such a creative and genius thought. The image of the Socouyant honestly fascinated me so much and this book illustrated the struggles of dementia and forgetting and I felt so bad for the son for seeing his mother forget who he is but in a way like Adele remembering the colonial traumas and holding on to her trauma and forgetting everything else was interesting because usually our brain blocks out trauma and the traumatic experiences we experience (or at least what I remember from my Psychology class {not a psychology experet}
I find it so interesting how we started our Can lit term reading a year of finding memory by Fong Bates and the idea of memory and now we are ending off with Soucouyant and the idea of Forgetting even the subtitle 'a novel of forgetting' is really really fascinating.
This book was such an easy read and I liked it. For sure wouldn't have picked it up on my own but the symbolism, imagery, metaphors {using the BIG ENGLISH MAJOR WORDS} was really unique and it was very very creative.

[Hina Zephyr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an achingly raw and sad book. Chariandy has captured a certain beauty even in the stark poverty and racism that follows this broken family from its roots in the Caribbean island to the bleak Scarborough bluffs. Each character has to battle their own demons. The book is similar in certain ways to Still Alice, in that the central character gradually loses herself in waves of dementia. But there the similarities end. Because Adele not only has to deal with her mental illness, she's had to fight racism and poverty all her life, which makes for a very unhappy existence.... and yet, there is something akin to great tenderness and love in her lucid interactions with her son.
Soucouyant is an evil spirit in Caribbean folklore, and like the name, the characters and their stories will haunt you long after you have turned the last page.

[Arsenal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finalist, Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Winner, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award (GOLD), Literary Fiction
Shortlisted for Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)
Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book
Shortlisted for City of Toronto Book Award
Shortlisted for the Amazon.ca/Books In Canada First Novel Award
Shortlisted for the ReLit Award, Best Novel
Shortlisted for One Book, One Vancouver
Now in its 3rd printing!

[PeachyTO · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprised of folklore, tragedy, racism, willful determination and eventually, Alzheimer’s disease, Soucouyant is the haunting tale of one man’s journey back to his ailing mother, and what he learns about himself and his roots along the way. Set in the Scarborough Bluffs, a beautiful suburb of Toronto, as contrasted by the ramshackle slums of Trinidad during WWII, the descriptions are breathtaking and shocking. More than just a novel, Soucouyant reads like poetry, and is magical in its style.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first three quarters of the book for a few reasons: it takes place outside of Toronto, it illustrates an immigrant family's struggle with racism, and it is from the view of an adult child dealing with his mother's developing dementia. I thought that all of this was well done, however the ending of the book lost me: I thought that the author tried to put too much information into explaining the characters' backgrounds. Chariandy would have been better off to have revealed more of this vital information throughout the novel, and to not overwhelm the conclusion.

[jenica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wanted to see her again. I wanted to see the life in her face. I longed for her as any son would for his mother, even so frightening a mother as she had become. And so, two years after leaving her, I dropped everything and returned to her a stranger.”

The last book for Canadian Literature full government name, who cheered??? This was the book I was anticipating the most from our syllabus and yknow what…I was not disappointed.
Edit: you already know wtf I'm gonna say, this is me writing like over two months since I've read this, I've finished exams, I don’t remember too much of what I read, let’s rock and roll.

David Chariandy’s 2007 novel Soucouyant is told through the perspective of an unnamed man who has returned home to his dementia-addled mother Adele. Throughout the story, we are told fleeting bits and pieces of Adele's life in Canada as a Caribbean-born immigrant as the narrator attempts to make sense of his mother’s past. Alongside him is a mysterious young woman who occupies his house, and who also has a past that must be uncovered. Set in Ontario near the Scarborough Bluffs, we dive into the immigrant experience, tragic family dynamics, generational trauma, and more oh my!!

Alright so yeah I cried, let's just start there. I don't have any personal experiences with family members who have dementia, but I was fighting for my fucking life at some points! I kind of felt like Chariandy's writing was a little distant sometimes, but this is mostly with regard to the narrator, who almost isn’t the main character. Although we read his first-person perspective, his presence in the book is quiet. He sees things and does things and says things and has things happen to him, but he feels more like a vessel for information than an actual person at times. Either way, I would also describe Chariandy’s writing as subtly heart-wrenching. There are moments that aren’t necessarily devastating on their own, but he builds upon his writing to create layers of meaning and implication that punch you in the face when you understand the gravity of Chariandy's words. These more quiet notes aren’t difficult to pick up at all, because Chariandy is good at keeping the story going; the events unfold as they need to, when they need to. Soucouyant is very character-driven, and he interposes past and present fragments to flesh out his characters. In other words, he injects slices of memories into the present narrative that both fill in the gaps and leave you with questions. I’m such a sucker for non-chronological storytelling, and Chariandy’s use of it in the book is one, very fitting, and two, powerful.

Okay let me get back to the emotions I felt because I cannot express how much this shit got me. Obviously a story about dementia is going to rip you apart, but I was still not ready for the deterioration of the relationship between Adele and her husband Roger. I find myself more compelled by the parent-child, particularly mother-child, dynamic more in fiction, but ohhhhhh Adele and Roger's story made me inconsolable. The shared experience they each have as non-white immigrants in the country made their union particularly emotional and yeah. I can't resist mentioning this one section when the two of them met that made me gasp when I read it because it's so wonderful: "A world of news in his satchel, the burnt chocolate darkness of his shins. It's been so long since she's seen anyone with such skin. Like wet earth. Like molasses." It's simple but girl this whole part of the story that I quoted this from made me emotional as hell life is so unfair. Anyway, the inner workings of their family are only shown in glimpses, and although I wouldn't have minded more family moments, especially between the narrator and his older brother, what we do see is full of significance. Additionally, the novel does indeed focus on mothers—yes more than one. Of course there's the narrator and Adele, but there's also Adele and her mother. I'll talk a little more about this in a sec, but the mother-child relationships in this book manifest very interestingly in the titular figure of the soucouyant.

The soucouyant, a Caribbean folklore character that I would recommend looking up if you're interested, has a very compelling reoccurrence in the story regarding Adele's memory and Adele herself. In the book, a soucouyant is described as a female vampire who disguises herself using the skin of an old woman. The role of the soucouyant in the story and what it represents is somewhat variable, but what I've resonated the most with is how it speaks to generational trauma. Like I said before, the novel invests in mothers and their children, and without giving unnecessary details, there are some notable parallels between these mothers and the soucouyant. This probably makes no sense, but this is something that really fascinated me while I was reading, and as a Certified Motherhood/Womanhood/Complicated Family Dynamic Story Lover, I enjoyed Chariandy's interpretation.

One last thing about the central concept of memory and history, particularly how these two things intertwine. The subtitle of Soucouyant is "A Novel of Forgetting," and I love it. The novel revolves around excavating Adele's past, including and especially her traumas, before it slips away into whatever the opposite of memory is. There's a part that touches on how forgetting can be life-sustaining, and relating to Adele/racialized first-generation immigrants, this sentiment is very true. When is it better to forget a bad memory, and is there any benefit to remembering it? See it's shit like this that I dig so so much, and Soucouyant wrestles with this question well. The novel shows a lot of instances where horrible shit has happened to our characters; the narrative is a mosaic of the past and the present; there is an emphasis on Canadian national history, non-Canadian history, and settler history. Like, this shit matters!!!! We are who we are because of our pasts and what we remember of it type deal.

This is an easy four, I have a proclivity to liking shit that makes me cry and this was a good one! oh boy was it good! I love angst, I love character stories, and I love anything to do with family structures. Soucouyant is for the second-generation immigrants out there. A little intertextuality moment that I liked was the inclusion of the poem "The Scarborough Settler's Lament." There's very interesting commentary on Canadian multiculturalism. This family deserved so much better omg, it's been two months since I read this and I still feel a little empty slot in my heart.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad but interesting picture of immigrant family in Canada with the maternal figure declining due to early onset dementia - possibly inherited and possibly brought on by traumas of her childhood.
Short but powerful book - emotionally charged with sadness and some minor hilarity.
I look forward to reading another book by this author.

[charlize · Rating 4 out of 5]

don't even know where to start. wow? i can't believe this is chariandy's first novel, this was my second time reading his work after 'brother.' whilst their roots are the same in the attention to detail necessary when writing about scarborough, being trini, and of course the divine prose, the chilling undertone sets it apart. growing up i've always been wary of soucouyants, this novel reignites that fear. still need to think more about this like always. oh and thanks for the derek walcott acknowledgment; always love it.

loved the historical content, especially as adele was, for lack of better words, a victim of the west indian domestic scheme. this is evident in the first excerpt i share. stuff like this always makes reading caribbean tales, and other minority groups so difficult. my hands brush against the printed words that have existed for years prior, spilling off the tongues of my parents and relatives depicting their own hardships.

i think that books and knowledge should be shared across all cultures and maybe only bound by the challenge of language barriers. however, there is something so unique about reading novels that you see yourself and your history between the lines. there are not many authors i can rely on to mention tamarind balls and parang music so easily.

i have more to say i think. hmm.

favourite lines:
- "Christmas Eve arrives suddenly. She's only been here a couple of months and she has no friends or family, though she tells herself this is fine. She has none of the things that remind her of Christmas, the parang music, the punch-o-creme and rum punch too. She sees instead a blanket of snow." /// my mom tells the story of her first Christmas the same. the morning of the 25th hearing the precious parang play not only through the landline but also across the ocean and thousand of kilometres separating her from everything deemed familiar. chariandy i love this.
- "This was the historic community of Port Junction, you see. It was considered one of the last remaining 'good' parts of Scarborough, meaning distant from the growing ethnic neighbourhoods to the west."
- "I'd recognize an investment in naming the world properly and a wariness of those moments when language seems to spill and tumble dangerously."
- "I'd explain that I understood the need for poetry because language can never be trusted and what the world doesn't need is another long story and all the real stories have become untellable anyway."
- "My history is a travel guidebook. My history is a creature nobody really believes in. My history is a foreign word."
- "It happened long ago in a faraway place, one morning when the sun was only a stain on the edge of the earth and the moon hadn't yet gone under."

[Antonio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is special

[kate elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy the first 3/4 of this book, but like with most reviews i agree the last 1/4 was filled with so much information it was kind of overwhelming to get it all at once and would have made sense for me to have it pieced throughout the 6 chapters. All in all a really good book discussing 1st and 2nd generation immigrants in Canada, racism and forgetting. while this was not my favourite book, i enjoyed soucouyant for what it was and I do want to read more of chariandy’s collection

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

(8/10) More than anything the appeal here is the language, a kind of sad poetry that captures the loss and strange redemption here better than any plotting could. Chariandy's prose is a joy to read, and it's hung on a decent story too, about trauma and forgetting and the question of how much responsibility one has to other people, especially one's family. If anything the problem with Soucouyant is that it seems too small and partial, like a jagged fragment of something bigger -- at the end I was thirsty for more. Chariandy is definitely an author to watch out for.

[Emily Hays · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heartbreaking novel mostly about a son who's returned to his mother after she's suffered for years with dementia. While I can see why so many people love this novel, I wished the ending had been tied into the rest of the novel more seemlessly. It wasn't a mystery novel. In fact, I found myself forgetting there were things to be "unconvered" until they came up again.
I just think it could have been more powerful for me had the past trauma of the novel's characters not been left as a surprise, almost plot twist, for the ending.

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Please see my "highlights" for quotes of extraordinarily beautiful writing. I look forward to more of his writing.

I thought the story here was good but I couldn't help comparing it to his "Brother," which I liked much more. And I really don't believe in comparing an author's work against his/her other works.

The tone here is subdued; there's confusion because it's told from a child's memory and the mother is now grappling with unreliable memory.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed this book - especially poignant to read while working on our show about dementia. blends of the heartbreak of losing a loved one to dementia, and the struggles of being an immigrant and "the other" in a new homeland. author has a new book coming out this year and looking forward to checking it out.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really well written. Clear, melodic prose, strong characters. Not my experience with dementia, but an entertaining account anyway. Ending was a bit much. Why do books with rape, violence, prostitution and accidentally setting your mother on fire sell? Still, loved the beginning the most. Some parts engrossing.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scarborough Bluffs (where I grew up) ... Soucouyant is an evil spirit in Caribbean folklore ... his mother arrived in Canada in the early 60s, her childhood in Trinidad during World War II, suffering now from dementia in Ontario

[Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book written by a prof at SFU. His parents were from Trinidad and lived in Ontario. I particlarly enjoyed reading this in Tobago. It provided a flavour and pespective I couldn't have had otherwise.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this novel. I like how it was very fragmented so that it was like he was simply telling the story of his mother and wasn't just writing a novel. The main characters were really relatable and the depiction of his mothers memory loss was quite well done.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent novel so far. A good follow up to Just Kids because Chiandry's voice is as tender and careful as Smith's.

[Adam Hodgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was so good, so sad and beautiful. I read it on a flight to vancouver a couple of days ago, I'm already trying to convince people to read it

[Andrea]

Very, very interesting. Mental illness, immigration, and identity. All rolled into a very readable story.