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London might not have Cuba's fleets of classic cars or choice of cool Panama hats, but this summer, Brixton is trying to bring a little Havana life to SW9 with. Brixton Beach Boulevard, London Picture: Brixton Rooftop - Beach Area - Check out TripAdvisor members' candid photos and videos.
Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. I am amazed that more people haven't discovered Roma Tearne. Her writing is nothing short of amazing. This is the third book I've read by her and there isn't a boring moment. Her prose flows and I seemed to be taken on a ride through her wonderful land of Sri Lanka. That in spite of the horror of war.
Actually this book deals with not only the horror of the civil war in Sri Lanka but also the horror of the West's misguided assault on the Middle East. Brixton Beach Beautifully written--Tearne's background as an artist adds such depth, without being frilly.
The violence of this book is made bearable only by the simple beauty and honesty of her storytelling. Although Brixton Beach is a semi-autobiographical novel, I don't think you need to know Tearne's background to be drawn in. But just in case: When she was only 10, Tearne and her parents fled the violence of Sri Lanka to live in England. Her father was Tamil persecuted minority and her mother Sinhalese privileged majority. Her life and novels are in many ways about recreating a lost home and a lost past.
Her images of Sri Lanka--a kind of paradise in hell--are haunting and absolutely real. Nostalgia is always present, and always, eventually, tainted with aversion. As it turns out, this potential for violence can't be escaped, even in England. Also good to know: Brixton Beach was no exception.
An easy read in terms of the fluidity of the writing and the plot pacing, but emotionally demanding.
If you have not any of her books, try this and the others. I have read 4 and all were fantastic.
I sort-of stumbled across this book and am so pleased I did. Once again, the central character of Brixton Beach, Alice Fonseka, is an artist - a sculptor who works with found objects - though this time Tearne brings the story shockingly up to date, as the novel begins with a vividly realised account of the aftermath of the 7 July bombings of The opening scene plunges straight into the horror and confusion of a British doctor, Simon Swann, as he runs towards the carnage on the Edgware Road.
Tearne establishes a potent sense of the atrocity through sharp, sensory fragments, incorporating flashes of "acid green jackets", "a bracelet on a blackened arm" and the all-pervasive smell of "sweat and rubber and explosives". It is clear, as Dr Swann performs his duty, that he is frantically worried about the whereabouts of a woman who lives in a house known as Brixton Beach.
To discover who this woman is, and how Brixton mysteriously came to possess a shoreline, Tearne winds the narrative back 30 years to an idyllic Sri Lankan beach, where the young Alice is receiving her first cycling lesson from her beloved grandfather Bee, a renowned artist and printmaker. At first, the war seems safely remote from Alice's blissful childhood. But intimations of the conflict begin to infiltrate; first when Alice is discriminated against at school for having a Tamil father; then when her mother loses her baby due to the wilful negligence of a Sinhalese doctor.
The family head for Britain, where the Fonsekas' marriage crumbles as Alice's father joins a radical sect which supports the Tigers, and her mother slips into dementia, crafting cardboard coffins and dressing a collection of dolls in her dead baby's clothes. As with the heroines of Tearne's previous two novels, the therapeutic power of art enables Alice to survive.
She names her house Brixton Beach and is mentored by a young art teacher who encourages her to develop the driftwood creations which provide a symbolic link to her lost home. As a visual artist, Tearne instinctively thinks in terms of texture and colour.
Yet more often than not her metaphors have a musical value. She writes of tension on the island "stretched like a cello string", or of Alice's footprints "marking the sand like musical notation". The conflict itself sets a discordant tone: After months of silence it marched in two-four time; a two-conductor orchestra without direction.