A Tall History of Sugar

Nov 03, 2019 Book Review…, News

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Author: Curdella Forbes
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD
A Tall History of Sugar captures the imagination with a riveting tale of earthly bonding. Curdella Forbes presents a band of well-crafted characters, each adding to a complex plot that is masterfully narrated with an insufflating play on words.
Forbes draws from twin-flame philosophy and the Gaelic concept of Anam Cara, to paint a love story that intrigues and mystifies. Even stripped of its cryptic carapace, her work still manages to deliver profound lessons on kinship, filial piety and devotion. Maybe the love between protagonists Moshe and Arrienne is only realizable in a quixotic sense, but Forbes’ authenticity makes believers out of dyed-in-wood skeptics – this, no easy feat by any means.
For these twin flames, there’s a telepathic interaction reserved for the etheric realms. Not unlike St Ignatius’ asceticism, their silence is reassuringly loud and prophetic. She is his confessor, his spiritual confidante, his Anam Cara or soul friend. He is even more provocatively magical. His precognitive and telepathic ability rivaled only by his unusual countenance, an unnatural phenotype that, like magnet, absorbs attention. In these parts, he is a sangoma fashioned by fate, not by the fancies of men.
In one scene, an obeah woman, a converter – she calls herself – with eyes closed, “was rotating softly on her bare heels, her feet turned back-ward…they were also short; they were not like feet but like the image of feet under water.” It is a catalytic encounter for Moshe and Arrienne, their future resting on the tongue of this mesmerizing figure.
The twins’ parents emerge as central figures that deserves study. Moshe’s mother Rachel, the seer, prophetess and potentially a volcanic woman, and Arrienne’s father George, the war combatant of means, with able help from their spouses, shape their children’s worldview.
Moshe and Arrienne stand out, objects of curiosity. They strain to articulate mere words but have found a way to communicate mentally.
And the two become one flesh.
“Mi wi tek care-a him mek nobody nuh trouble him, Miss Rachel” Moshe said, introducing Arrienne to his mother. “He didn’t know how he knew it was what his new friend was thinking, or how he came to say it in her voice, like a ventriloquist double, or how he knew that she had sent him her words and given him permission to say them, but that was what he did and the large girl seemed satisfied,”
However, for all their oddity they are the glue that cements their family. In the case of Moshe, his presence demanded their parents’ attention leaving “little room for quarreling.” Moreover, “if Rachel’s patience with her husband was of a proxy kind…she found it did not matter, for though she did not love her husband as at the first, she no longer felt judged by him for not having a child, and she could sleep in the same bed with him without anger.”
From whence Moshe came, we only imagine. We get answers that border on the fabled and the mythical, not far removed from the Hebrew-Egyptian legend of Moses.
Arrienne, on the other hand possesses a striking Amazon-like frame with enviable strength and physical dexterity. She is an able protector, a defender of her frail mate. It is in the unforgiving world of bullying and politicking that the two sustain each other. Moshe is derided, not unlike Goat Girl, another sympathetic character. Throughout, Arrienne is stoic and tough as nails. She is unscathed amid the unsettling pestering of classmates.
In a time when corporal punishment in schools was common, Arrienne defied belief.
“In the beginning, he cried because she was beaten and she did not. She was fierce and refused to cry, no matter how many and how hard the blows…Then they would walk home alone, without fear of the ridicule that he dreaded. She was not bothered by the ridicule. She would simply fight to defend him from it.
One unforgettable fight scene leaves us transfixed:
“Arrienne, the large girl let go of Moshe’s hand and dropped her books on the ground. She took off her uniform belt and pushed Moshe behind her; and then she bent in the classical elementary school fighting pose, a crouching position like a wrestler, legs splayed wide, imaginary sleeves rolled up, arms cocked and her fists at the ready, and she danced on her feet and brandished her fists lie a boxer.
“The melee was broken up, she was panting hard…one of her shoes was missing and dirt was on her face and one of her knuckles was bleeding, and the two boys were all swollen in their faces and one of them was holding the front of his pants and crying.”
They seamlessly transition from pubescence experiencing new feelings and possibly new interests. The oracle that speaks of Moshe’s foreign travels is challenged by Arrienne, the thought of separation ever threatening.
Moshe begins to unfold; he is more expressive and impressively artistic; an artistry that redefines all that is absorbed into his space. “We are all marching toward death,” but before the bell tolls, there is a tireless search for meaning. Moshe learns of his mother’s demise, the mother that surrendered him, hoping for a satisfying outcome. “It hurt him to think his mother hanged herself with a rope in a cave because of him. But he was grateful, nevertheless, his mother given a face, “no matter how distorted in the grimace of death.”
Gripping and enthralling well define the denouement of this tale.
With its fair share of phantasmagoria, A Tall History of Sugar lends meaning to the concept of being; its ontological message unmistakable: consciousness allows for the unimaginable.
Without question, Forbes’ offering is an inexorable triumph, a dazzling fusion of the binary world of the sacred and the profane.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

Feedback: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes
©2019 Curdella Forbes
Akashic Books, Brooklyn, New York
ISBN978-1-61775-751-8
Available at Amazon
Ratings: Recommended

 

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