Sorting through the effects of her beloved grandmother, Mariam, shortly after her death, British journalist, Katerina Knight, discovers a wooden spice box containing a journal and stack of handwritten letters. The documents are written in Armenian, a language which neither Katerina nor her mother understands but, on holiday in Cyprus, Katerina meets a handsome young man who offers to translate them. Mariam’s scribbles tell of relatives lost to slaughter and exile in the 1915 Armenian genocide, of a fortuitous rescue by an English couple and a country childhood ending with another lost love. Meanwhile, Gabriel, an elderly Armenian living in Nicosia, exiled a second time with the partitioning of Cyprus into Greek and Turkish sectors, is bemoaning his granddaughter’s engagement to a man from outside the community, perceiving it as a betrayal of her origins, as cultural genocide, although one of his drinking friends advises tolerance (p175-6):
‘Let go of the past, my friend. All that stored up resentment isn’t good for the soul.’
‘The past is not like water in a toilet bowl. It can’t be flushed away. It’s a septic tank growing more rancid by the day.’
The reader discovers before he does Gabriel’s link to Mariam and Katerina, and from that point the novel is driven by the question of whether these characters will finally connect.
‘Let go of the past, my friend. All that stored up resentment isn’t good for the soul.’
‘The past is not like water in a toilet bowl. It can’t be flushed away. It’s a septic tank growing more rancid by the day.’
The reader discovers before he does Gabriel’s link to Mariam and Katerina, and from that point the novel is driven by the question of whether these characters will finally connect.
I was drawn to this novel by the topic of the Armenian genocide, a subject that is still denied in some quarters and rarely addressed in fiction, Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin a notable exception. Initially, this left me with a little less patience for the contemporary strand of the novel and the question of whether Katerina herself would find love. But each of the three strands is essential to the story, united in a moving finale that brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me
| somewhat of Victoria Hyslop’s bestseller, The Island, although I liked The Spice Box Letters better. I was excited to be able to attend the launch event for The Spice Box Letters at Five Leaves Bookshop to hear Eve Makis read two beautiful extracts from her novel. The first evoked the sights and smells of a busy marketplace in 1915 eastern Turkey, when a young Mariam first encounters hostility towards the Armenians; the second, the novel’s humorous introduction to Gabriel’s curmudgeonly character (p 71): |  |
Basturma sausages hang menacingly over my head, a dozen cumin-centred parcels, bunched like fists. I look up at them and wish they would fall and inflict a fatal blow. ‘Gabriel Arakelian killed by falling basturma,’ they would write on my gravestone. Gabriel Arakelian, who cheated death time and time again, was finally and thankfully seen off by a sausage. At least I will not leave this world smelling of formaldehyde but scented with eau de cumin, garlic and fenugreek. The Armenian has arrived, the dead will say, when my pungent spirit reaches the other side.
Thick with the aroma and flavour of traditional Armenian cuisine (although I did begin to wonder about my virtual calorie consumption as I read through the lists of sumptuous home-cooked dishes), The Spice Box Letters is about the fragmented histories arising from the refugee experience and about the endurance of family love. Thanks to Sandstone Press (publishers of The Surfacing) for my review copy. If this review has whetted your appetite, I also urge you to read about the author’s connection with Cyprus on Isabel Costello’s literary sofa.
The latest Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge reminded me of another aspect of Gabriel’s history portrayed in the novel. Charli Mills asks us to write a 99-word story including a juxtaposition between the ordinary and natural worlds. I wasn’t so sure about the distinction between those terms, but I was inspired by other aspects of Charli’s post, including mining and medical care, in composing my flash:
I was glad to make my home in the mountains, with a cooling breeze moderating the heat of the Mediterranean sun. On feast days, we’d dance and drink with the neighbours, the violins muffling the drone of the mine. No-one complained about the dust that clung to every surface, that wormed its way into our lungs. In our eyes, the village was beautiful, clothed in white the whole year round.
Now I lie in the hospital, a mask strapped to my face. People cringe on learning what put food in our bellies back then. Asbestos. Natural isn’t always best.
Fortunately, in the novel, Gabriel moves away from the asbestos mine before it does him real damage.
I’d love to know what you think.
Thick with the aroma and flavour of traditional Armenian cuisine (although I did begin to wonder about my virtual calorie consumption as I read through the lists of sumptuous home-cooked dishes), The Spice Box Letters is about the fragmented histories arising from the refugee experience and about the endurance of family love. Thanks to Sandstone Press (publishers of The Surfacing) for my review copy. If this review has whetted your appetite, I also urge you to read about the author’s connection with Cyprus on Isabel Costello’s literary sofa.
The latest Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge reminded me of another aspect of Gabriel’s history portrayed in the novel. Charli Mills asks us to write a 99-word story including a juxtaposition between the ordinary and natural worlds. I wasn’t so sure about the distinction between those terms, but I was inspired by other aspects of Charli’s post, including mining and medical care, in composing my flash:
I was glad to make my home in the mountains, with a cooling breeze moderating the heat of the Mediterranean sun. On feast days, we’d dance and drink with the neighbours, the violins muffling the drone of the mine. No-one complained about the dust that clung to every surface, that wormed its way into our lungs. In our eyes, the village was beautiful, clothed in white the whole year round.
Now I lie in the hospital, a mask strapped to my face. People cringe on learning what put food in our bellies back then. Asbestos. Natural isn’t always best.
Fortunately, in the novel, Gabriel moves away from the asbestos mine before it does him real damage.
I’d love to know what you think.
RSS Feed
