His/her story begins to intertwine with Miss Ramchandin’s when an important person from her past and his son come to visit and a romance blossoms between the two younger folks. Gradually this woman’s heart-breaking story, a difficult and complex one in which colonization, misogyny, and homophobia have all wrecked havoc on her life, is told to us through the eyes of the sympathetic and endearing Tyler. Our narrator is the precocious nurse Tyler, a fighting spirit of a feminine man (or a trans woman? the text is uninterested in such labels) who works at an Alms house and is the caretaker of a mysterious elderly woman, Miss Ramchandin, who has quite the history in this small town ironically called Paradise. That said, the people in this novel-most of them queer-are as unforgettable as the tongue-twisting fictional name of the setting. The dripping gorgeousness of the buzzing insects, blooming trees, and vibrant flowers-especially the central image of the illusive cereus flower-are imprinted on my mind. An Indo-Trinidadian-Canadian author, Mootoo sets her novel in the fictionalized island Lantanacamara-clearly a stand-in for Trinidad-and the luscious environment of the island is really a character unto itself. Amazingly, Cereus Blooms at Night is Mootoo’s first novel, but you would never guess the writing as well as the plot is so richly and confidently woven. I’ve honestly never read anything that had such a sensory effect on me: the lilting rhythm of the language, the bittersweetness of the narrative twists, everything about this novel felt so visceral.

Will remind many readers of Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things KirkusįINALIST FOR THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZEThe worth of something as delicious as Shani Mootoo’s novel, Cereus Blooms at Night, would be hard to overestimate. Visceral, sensual and heartbreakingly tender Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, author of When We Were BirdsĪ story of magical power Alice Munro, author of Dear Life He dives deeply into Malas family history, uncovering years of trauma passed down through generations and - staggeringly, beautifully - the love that has survived through it all. This is Malas story, and an appeal to find Asha, told in Tylers words. Despite Malas muteness, she manages to communicate with Tyler about her missing sister, Asha.

Here she meets Tyler, the only openly queer person on the island of Lantanacamara with whom she feels an affinity as an outsider. But with no body, no evidence and no witnesses, Mala is sent to an Alms House as a madwoman instead of prison. A Caribbean classic Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black ConchĮveryone in Paradise thinks Mala Ramchandin is a murderer.

Cereus blooms at night