"The book of memory" by Petina Gappah (Faber and Faber, 2015)

Memory/Mnemosyne (a negroid albino born in Zimbabwe in the 70s) was sold by her parents to Lloyd (a white, about 35 at the time) when she was 9. Now she's on death row ("the first woman in more than twenty years to be sentenced to death", p.26). She's trying to appeal, helped by Vernah Sithole.

It's a first-person novel, rocking back and forth in time. The conceit is that Memory (Memo for short) is writing her life up for a journalist, Melinda Carter - "If I am to tell you the truth, Melinda, I had not expected that I would enjoy this. I am enjoying these words, crafting sentences ... I am writing to keep myself alive. But I am also laying out the threads that have pulled my life together, to see just where this one connects with that one or crosses with the other, to see how they form the tapestry from which I will stand back to get a better view" (p.85). There are witty allusions and big words ("stertorous" and "strident" in one paragraph on p.49), which at first seem inappropriate for the character. However, we're told that Memory was "first out of all the four classes of grade threes" (p.34), and later we discover that she went to Cambridge University.

She points out on p.78 that Zimbabwe is a country of immense contradictions. So is she - a white-skinned black born into a black household, raised in a white; born poor, raised rich; wrong but right. No aunts or extended family.

In part 1 there's lively observation of street life, life in the townships, and prison life.

In part 2 we learn more about her time with Lloyd. It seems odd that an apparent stranger would put himself at risk like this - we're told "It all seems so utterly improbable./ and yet it happened" (p.138). At first she's not happy - "Crippled by fear and longing for home, I was saved by books" (p.164). Much later she's angry when she discovers that she and Lloyd share the same lover, a successful young black male artist, Zenzo (that either relationship started at all is a surprise). She anonymously tells the police about Lloyd's homosexuality - another surprise. She wants to get away, manages to get into Sidney Sussex Cambridge where she meets Simon (who?) - all dealt with in a paragraph. But for a month, she stays away 10 years. On her return much has changed in the country - white farms are being repossessed. She finds Lloyd dead. Botching an attempt to spare his dignity, she opens herself to accusations that she murdered him.

In the short 3rd part we learn a little about her family tree, how dangerous her mother was. She begins to question the accuracy of her memories and interpretations.

Plot-wise, you need to suspend disbelief. Several of the plot turns seem unlikely, even when explanations are subsequently attempted. The first day in Lloyd's house and at Cambridge must have been a shock, but are barely recounted, unlike the events on the day of Lloyd's death. Given the sort of person she is by then, her actions on that day are surprising. Was she making amends for the embarrassment she'd caused earlier with the police? She says "You will understand from this that I was clearly not thinking straight" (p.227).

Other reviews

• Becca Rothfeld (these scant philosophical forays are the most nuanced part of a novel propelled almost exclusively by cheap suspense. Its tone, which is self-consciously literary, and its plot, which treats us to the standard bouts of amorous obsession and familial turmoil, are flavorless fare with little lasting force. ... “The Book of Memory” contains all the elements of made-to-order profundity, copied from the familiar templates ... Gappah’s book cloaks its aphoristic abstractions in the trappings of shallow lyricism, hoping that we might mercifully mistake melodrama for substance.)
• Anita Sethi (There are sections that could have been more fully developed, such as Memory falling in love for the first time, and occasional inconsistencies in voice are jarring, but these glitches aside, this is a moving novel about memory that unfolds into one about forgiveness, and a passionate paean to the powers of language.)
• Sarah Gilmartin (The novel spins around various mysteries: why did no relatives ever come to visit the family in Mufakose, why did Mnemosyne’s loving father agree to send her away, what did Lloyd and his mansion in Unwinsidale have to gain, what drove his adopted daughter to kill him decades later, did she really kill him or is it just another wrong in a long line of wrongs? As it seeks to tie all the disparate strains together, the book’s impact lessens significantly in the final quarter. Too little of Mnemosyne’s life with Lloyd, her relationships with the white Rhodesians, or with social climbing artist Zenzo, whose character is introduced far too late, is depicted for the reader to truly connect with this part of the story)
• Nichole Perkins (a fiercely vivid novel that in some places — particularly, unfortunately, its opening pages — takes itself too seriously. Some paragraphs there are loaded with foreshadowing and sentimentality — but this is just an awkward warm-up for a book of song and color.)
• Hamilton Cain (Gappah ingeniously weaves Shona words and constructs into “The Book of Memory,” sometimes mid-sentence, underscoring the tensions between the legacy of European colonialism and African desire for self-determination. As the novel builds to its startling resolution, Gappah illuminates a Zimbabwe in transition, framed by an old-fashioned murder mystery. Crisply written, wryly humorous, “The Book of Memory” attests to her astonishing talent.)