Black Bread White Beer: An Observer Book of the Year Adult Fiction Satire of Family Life

by Niven Govinden

OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012

LONGLISTED FOR THE DSC PRIZE FOR SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

Amal is driving his wife Claud from London to her parents’ country house. In the wake of Claud’s miscarriage, it is a journey that will push their relationship – once almost perfect – towards possible collapse.

In this, his latest novel, Govinden casts a critical eye on a society in which, in spite of never-ending advances in social media communications, the young still find it difficult to communicate.

A devastatingly passionate and real portrait of a marriage, ‘Black Bread White Beer’ keenly captures the abandon, selfishness, hazards and pleasures that come with giving your life to another.

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Observer (UK) Book of the Year, translated from Indian, and set in Sussex(!). An Englishman of Indian descent and his Sussex born White English wife return to her parents home in Sussex to try and come to terms with their miscarriage, by essentially literally telling anyone and everyone about it. A clever book looking at marriage, families, trust and identity. Good read! 7 out of 12.
2015 read

[K.J. Charles]

Holy crap this was good. I have been putting it off because it sounded honestly kind of depressing, but really. So good. I am writing this with blurry vision from sniffling.

It's about a couple at their lowest ebb, hurting themselves and each other, and about the experience of endless microaggressions and cultural clash and masculinity and how toxic it gets, and parenthood and the unacknowledged devastation of early miscarriage, all of which sounds terribly like a massive downer. but it really isn't. In the end it's a book about humans trying to keep a spark of light and decency and the ending is the most perfect thing.

Absolutely loved it. Wonderful unflinching characterisation. Hugely recommended.

[Pooja Pillai · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much insight in this book - into the nature of marriage, it's many joys and perils, the burden of parenthood, the influence of race and culture. Most of us like to pretend that marriages fall apart because of major issues like infidelity or domestic violence, whereas the smallest things can sometimes hurtle an other stable marriage on the road to destruction.
There really isn't much of a plot: Amal and Claud have been trying for a baby, but Claud miscarries. This precipitates a crisis in their marriage. The events are narrated through Amal's perspective as he tries to comfort his wife while also dealing with his own pain. In the duration of 12 hours we see him swinging from anger to bewilderment to hope to resignation. This is a sharply observed and sensitively written novel.

[J.S. Colley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Bread White Beer is about a couple who have just suffered a miscarriage. It’s a short book. The story covers one day—the day the wife is discharged from the hospital.

What I like about this novel is it’s told through the perspective of the male. It’s an honest, raw portrayal of the narrator’s inner conflict. The reader sees his ugly thoughts, his confusion and hurt, as well as his compassion and sorrow.

To further complicate matters, theirs is a mixed race marriage, Amal is Indian and his wife, Claudia, is full-on British. This makes Amal feel even further alienated. How to handle this situation the way his wife and in-laws expect and in a way that will not dishonor his own parents and culture?

This book is about so many things: race and racism; how different cultures and the sexes grieve; about marriage—how you can hate and love someone at the same time; how a tragedy can either make a marriage stronger or break it; it’s about blame and forgiveness; about religion—why does it have to be an all or nothing deal?—(“But something was out there, had to be, otherwise how else could they make sense of this? The loss could be explained by science; the healing, not.”). And it’s about how much a baby is wanted is often the difference between thinking a twenty-one day old pregnancy is a “collection of cells” or a “b-a-b-y.”

After reading the novel, I started thinking tangentially about other issues. With women’s issues always in the forefront in terms of reproduction rights, I often wonder how men feel about this? Where does their responsibility begin, and where does it end? I think, just like Amal, they must be often dazed and confused as to how they’re suppose to feel, or what their roles should be. I thought how difficult being the perfect male must be in today’s societies. (Yes, men can be nasty brutes, but do women really appreciate the good ones? Or give them credit where credit is due?) Maybe I started to think about these things because, at times, I didn’t find the wife, Claud (she preferred the shortened, more masculine form of her name), very likable.

I had only one problem with the novel. Between the British and Indian cultural references and ways of speech, I was slightly confused at times, especially during Amal’s more philosophic musings, but it was a minor issue.

I found Black Bread White Beer to be a poignant, and at times uncomfortable, look at the emotional stages a couple goes through in times of grief and crisis. The author takes a topic that could be merely depressing and turns it into a thought-provoking, unfiltered look at the inner workings of a marriage.

[Angelique]

If you do not like Govinden's writing style in the begining, you will not by the end.

Or rather I didn't. It's so dense, for being such a little book, it feels so long.

And I ADORED meeting Govinden and hearing him read. And tried to hear him read this as well.

It's remarkable the world he's created and the characters and the relationship. But it's so...dense. It's so heavy, it was hard for me to sorta figure it out.

[Burnsie7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely written light read, despite subject

[bsolt · Rating 4 out of 5]

See the original review here: http://gamingforjustice.com/2016/12/2...

Amal and Claud are married. They live in London and have a fantastic relationship and life. Together, they decide to have a child, but twenty-one days into the pregnancy, Claud has a miscarriage. The story begins here as Amal drives to the hospital to pick up Claud in order to drive to Claud's parent's house in the country for their scheduled visit. The entire story is about the drive down to the country, their brief stay with Claud's parents, and how they reconcile this tragedy between themselves and the people around them. Although a short book, Black Bread White Beer carries strong emotions, explores healing relationships in the face of the impossible, and two cultures clashing through grief.

An interesting dynamic between Amal and Claud's parents is centered around race. From the moment Amal and Claud start driving out to the country, I felt the tension between the two rise. Once they arrive at the country house, the way Claud's parents treat Amal is evident at the lingering racism and bigotry they have towards Amal. Amal is Indian and Claud is British, creating not only a racial divide but a cultural divide too. Although Amal is British (similar to how an Indian as an American citizen is American), he is not accepted. I am not quite sure the intentions by the author when writing the relationships in the book; however, I saw the author infusing the history of colonization and racism between Britain and India into the sparse prose, playing out in the relationships between Amal, Claud, and her parents.

Further, the author was able to explore the expectations of grieving in different cultures and between different gender identities and expressions. How much grief is Amal suppose to show? Who are they suppose to tell? When should they tell Claud's parents... Amal's parents? What will the different reactions be from both of them? These questions all come up and are all measured by the main characters. As to be expected, the ending of the book holds no stunning answer to questions about grief and loss. As tough as the topic of the book, the resolution is similarly tough. However, I do think there is a lot of great discussion of what healing might look like from such a devastating personal tragedy for different people.

Black Bread White Beer was a powerful and difficult read. While I cannot even fathom the experience of going through a miscarriage and what that might do to my relationships, I felt the raw emotions packed into this short book. Each chapter, each scene is crafted by the author, has a specific purpose, and carries a heavy philosophical questions with it. It is short, but dense. It is short, but meaningful. Getting a print version of this book might be difficult (especially for those in the US), but the Kindle edition is currently 99 cents . On Amazon.de, the Kindle version is 6,99 EUR and the print version is 10,80 EUR. At the very least, put this on your TBR for 2017!

Final Rating: 4.2/5

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden is something of a voyeuristic novel. Spanning just twenty-four hours, the story follows Amal and Claud, a young married couple who are taking a trip into the country to visit Claud's parents.

Amal and Claud have been married for three years, they come from very different backgrounds, but share the same hopes and dreams. Yesterday Claud miscarried their first child. Today Amal is trying to come to terms with the alien-like stranger who sits alongside him in the car, who used to be his wife.

Narrated throughout by Amal, this is a short, yet stark look at modern-day marriage. Not only do this couple have to deal with the horror of losing a baby; a baby that they'd only known about for twenty one days, they also have to deal with the clash of cultures that their marriage has brought about. Claud's white middle-class parents try to deal with Amal's colour and Indian heritage as best they can, emphasising their terms of endearment so that nobody could ever accuse them of prejudice.

There is an underlying tension running through this story which keeps the reader on edge, almost fearful of what may happen. Claud has decided that her parents should not know about the miscarriage and upon entering her childhood home has reverted back to a childlike state. Doted on by her parents, allowed to dress up in her mother's cocktail gown, or bury sad memories in a Tupperware box in the garden - this is Claud's way of coping. Amal, on the other hand is lost. He feels left out, excluded and finds it incredibly difficult to accept the congratulations thrust upon him by the villagers.

Although narrated by Amal and heavily featuring Claud and her parents, it is Claud and Amal's marriage that takes centre stage in this novel. Almost stripped bare by both of them in their desperate need to understand what went wrong, their relationship begins to teeter and fall, and one wonders if it will ever regain it's balance.

Although bleak, this is an excellent novel, with a flash of humour and a lot of humanity. Niven Govinden's writing is engaging, descriptive and incredibly readable.

[Deepak Nare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black Bread White Beer by Niven Govinden tackles one of the most important issues of human society, marriage, in a most subtle and passionate way.
The whole book wraps up in span of just a day; Amal Joshi is driving her wife Claud from London to her parents’ country house. Claud’s recent miscarriage of 21 days had down-hilled their already shattering marriage. Amal, a brown guy who converted from Hindu to Catholic; to marry Claud, a Britain brought-up white, is finding the still persisting differences inescapable. Two adults committed to each other have to struggle their disparity of gender, religion, backgrounds and races in the hope of a better future.
This book might appear dark at first glimpse but it’s the subtext which really makes the reader to think about the fragile nature of a relationship in this fast paced life. How your society influences your morals and choices, the inability to communicate with the most important person in your life and those feelings which always lack expressions are beautifully bared in a deliberated manner.
Though the characters never opens up as one would expect and the narration portrays only Amal’s point of view, author has done a commendable job of getting into the brain of a grieving man who is trying to soothe her wife and at the same time fighting with his own pain and inadequacies. Although it’s a slim book with slow story flow, the fresh view of writer over modern society and hidden criticism makes it a great read.

[Suzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Mesmerising, beautifully written, haunting. So good I read it twice. A book to devour.

[Kelly Boville]

Great book, really enjoyed the emotional rollercoaster