The House of Broken Bricks

February 12, 2024
Williams’s lyrical and haunting debut delves into the troubles faced by a mixed-race family in the English countryside. Tess and Richard’s marriage is on the rocks, largely because Tess, who is Black and grew up in a Jamaican section of London, doesn’t feel accepted in the couple’s largely white agricultural community, and Richard, a farmer, is at a loss for how to support her. Their fraternal twin boys, Max and Sonny, are also struggling. Tess is often viewed with suspicion when she’s with the lighter-skinned Max (one chilling scene involves a librarian forcing Tess to prove her identity before allowing her to leave with Max), while the darker-skinned Sonny is given racist nicknames by his primary school classmates. Around the novel’s halfway point, Tess makes tentative plans to return to London with Sonny (her “mini-me”). In a twist that recasts much of the preceding narrative in a new light, her plans are disrupted by a tragic accident. The event is heavily foreshadowed and not particularly surprising, but its effect on the family is palpable. Williams skillfully juggles the perspectives of her four main characters to reveal their impressions of one another (Richard views Tess’s anger as a “harsh whip”) and evoke the pastoral landscape (Sonny finds the air “full of liquid skylark song”). Readers will be moved.

December 6, 2024

Tess, a Londoner of Jamaican descent, and Richard, a white farmer from rural Somerset, are swept off their feet by their love for each other. Tess agrees to move to rural Somerset with Richard, even though she is a city girl and there are no other people of color in their small town. Soon after, they have fraternal twin boys. Max presents as white, while Sonny presents as Black, leading to struggle for the family, as outsiders refuse to believe the boys are brothers, much less twins, and Tess is sometimes forced to prove that she is Max's mother. When the boys are 10, tragedy drives the family to despair. The battle to reinvent their family and rekindle the love that underlies their relationships eventually resolves, allowing them all to move on. Relayed in prose that is lyrical and evocative, Williams's debut novel progresses from multiple viewpoints over the course of a year. Her characters struggle with death, racism, and the love that holds a family together. Ben Allen, Lee Braithwaite, and Jessica Hayles narrate hope and despair, confusion and clarity, secrecy and longing with skill. VERDICT Patrons will enjoy this story of family love and loss that captures the struggle to regroup after a family tragedy.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

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