Jubilee by Shelley Harris - Phoenix fiction

1977. The year of the Jubilee. Andrew Ford, a photographer managed to capture a moment for ever somewhere in England : a street party with bunting and Union Jacks fluttering in the breeze. Only six people can be seen with clarity. Satish who is now a successful cardiologist was the key compositional element of the picture. Chance served Andrew Ford well and 30 years later he wants to take a reunion photograph in exactly the same place where the picture was taken. But Satish doesn’t want to join in. He pretends to be too busy and feels it won’t work out well. What happened before the photo and after ?

The novel tells us about the difficulties of multiculturalism in England in the seventies. Satish, the main character was displaced from Uganda and plunged into the cold shock of an English autumn. He had to face issues relating to racism (parents in the neighbourhood were not keen about their daughters playing with him or he was being called with some nasty names). The author creates that sense of seventies time by using some musical references such as the “Sex Pistols”, “Abba”, “Boney M”.

The novel moves between the seventies and the present day. I was actually more interested by Satish’s life as an adult comparing to his childhood. He is quite a lonely character and I think the writer did well describing the issue of Satish’s addiction. He works in an hospital and it’s easy for him to have access to all sort of drugs. But once he starts stealing some medicine for sleeping, he’s convinced he’s going to get caught. 

However, I did not overall like the plot : too many topics not deeply analysed sometimes lead to confusion. I was often wondering : what is this book about ? Is it about addiction, racism, immigration, family secret, or sound of the loneliness?

I’ve read books based on a family photographs and the best one so far was “Eux sur la photo.”by Helene Gestern http://apresavoirlu.canalblog.com/archives/2013/02/10/26381383.html I find pictures utterly fascinating : they freeze a moment and allow you to look at every last detail of it. You start to think : How many characters can we see ? What are the people doing ? How can we describe the atmosphere ? Pictures are a fantastic support for writing an essay, a short story or a novel. At the same time, pictures do not always mean the truth or the reality because all we see is the surface so then we build up our own story.

With this book in particular, I was very disappointed with the fact that the description of the picture itself lasted one or two paragraph.

I could see the point of the writer was to write about a shock of an immigrant Asian boy who was discovering racism. Her intent was good but overall the action was very slow, too many boring characters, and not enough tension.