Lantern Evening

by Amanthi Harris

‘No one knows what it’ll be like, Baby. You have to trust me. And I have to trust you.’

Nearing her due date, Ria worries about the kind of mother she will be, fearing she lacks the maternal instincts of other women. All the while she reflects on her childhood in Sri Lanka, her parent’s dysfunctional relationship, and the Vesak celebrations when their marriage fell apart.

As we move between that fateful evening and the final days of her maternity, Lantern Evening reminds us that it is in weakness and vulnerability that parenting is often at its most effective. Amanthi Harris’s debut acts on the reader like a lantern in the night sky: shining companionship in uncertainty, offering steady faith in a brighter tomorrow.

'A beautiful, affecting, delicately written narrative that subtly and constantly blurs the boundary between the ordinary and the momentous.' – Amit Chaudhuri

43 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing prepared you for who you would be on the other side of the birth you were prepared for so meticulously. A mother should reassure, but a mother working blind, working in trajectories of hope, extrapolations from ideals of the mother she would like to be – a mother so precariously equipped was likely to scare anyone off. What an unappealing prospect for the baby. It seemed dangerous even to her

Gatehouse Press is a very small, volunteer-based, publishing house from Norwich with a mission is to support new writers, primarily through publishing poetry and short stories. Alongside this they run a New Fictions Prize – a short fictions prize for novellas between 10,000 and 13,000 words, the prize for which is publication by Gatehouse in their New Fictions series.

Their first 2014-15 prize, was won by Preti Taneja’s Kumkum Malhotra and Nicola Daly’s And the Years Rolled by at an Alarming Rate – both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The 2015-16 prize was won by this book (and Rebecca Lloyd’s “Bogieman”) and this book is the first to be published (in 2017).

The book is narrated by Ria, living in the UK, facing the imminent birth of her first child, at the time of the Vesak day celebrations – and looking back on a previous Vesak celebration in her original home of Sri Lanka. That previous night effectively lead to the break up of her parents (her ambitious mother, always seeking to emulate her richer sister; her modest and very conventional father) but a night she remembers for a moment of tenderness with her father at the end of the evening (even if years later she realises his mood was more relief at finally realising he needed to leave his marriage). Ria (and her mother) are very ambiguous about the pregnancy and the loss of independence it may bring, but as she reflects Ria wonders if it really would be so bad, so reeking of defeat, to align herself with her father’s world and the book finishes memorably.

Love was a fact, love existed, even when it didn’t reach another person. There was a love in that solitary moment on the flat roof with the unlit lanterns. It was hers to remember, to keep, to give

Another great addition to this worthy series.

[Nisha Patel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful story about an expectant mother contemplating motherhood and thinking about her childhood.