An extraordinary and emotionally immersive novel – the music of Lisa Allen-Agostini's writing voice is gloriously specific to Trinidad, yet this heart-wrenching story of a woman both liberated and in need of liberation has universal resonance.'— Margaret Busby. Colin tells Allie one day that their grandmother Ma left them her house in Valencia. Allie is initially thrilled to finally have something of her own. However, when she, Colin, and Leo visit the house together, she starts to feel differently. While at the house, Colin reveals that Mammie and Allan had an incestuous relationship and Allie is their child. Allie convinces her boss Bobby to hire her friend Jerry to do the shop's window displays for the upcoming Fire Fete. While Jerry is working at On the Town, he learns the truth about Allie's relationship. Showing her his own scars and sharing stories from his own abusive relationship, he urges her to leave Leo. With such an interesting and complicated character in Alethea, you can’t help but to root for her along her journey of discovering why her life turned out the way it has. I particularly enjoyed reading about her finding and connecting with her long-lost brother, Colin. Their relationship is not easy and has a complicated history, but their rekindling is so meaningful and joyful once they are able to reconnect. Her relationship with him, and with old and new friends, shows not only the importance of support in abusive relationships, but how much strength it takes from the individual victims, regardless of these support systems. In the narrative present, Allie is 39 years old. She is living in Carenage, a town outside of Port of Spain. She resides with her abusive boyfriend Leo. Although Leo is jealous, manipulative, and violent, Allie feels incapable of leaving him.

Alethea’s voice is strong and distinct from the outset; she’s passionate, no nonsense and independent. One of my favourite storylines was seeing how she reconnects with both Colin and her old school friend Jankie, and how her friendship develops with her colleague Tamika. These are necessary surprises she wasn’t expecting; she starts to open up, let people into her life and realise she can be happy and importantly, that she deserves it. In the dramatic conclusion, Allen-Agostini leaves us with some hope. As she said to me, “I would like readers to take away that we can be redeemed and that we can grow beyond our histories.” We meet characters who have found ways to break the cycle of violence in their lives, and Allie begins on a road to healing. Her path–or at least aspects of it–may suggest useful options to the large numbers of men and women in unhealthy or abusive relationships. It’s clear that sex is complicated. Her feelings and motivation around sex swing widely between extremes. Her violent ongoing rape for over a decade combined with the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse from her mother was (understandably) traumatic and she never received the help she needed to work through those experiences and the impact it had on her. She fell into a cycle abuse and rape/sexual assault in most of her relationships.

The novel reveals society’s relationship with this form of abuse and how women bear the blame and responsibility for it.

The rollercoaster of Alethea’s life shows us what it means to be a resilient survivor. It was an insightful and important representation of abusive relationships and the complicated factors that can lead to them and make it difficult to leave. The Bread the Devil Knead was shortlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction along with five other titles. Ruth Ozeki took home the winner’s trophy for The Book of Form and Emptiness.

I never meet a man yet who wouldn’t horn you if you give he a chance, but maybe that was just me. I is a bad-man magnet, I does tell myself sometimes.” It is perhaps due to this ominous atmosphere and what seems to be a steady approach to an inevitable conclusion that the ending feels surprising. It initially seems that there had been a change in course that seeks to provide a ‘happy’ ending rather than a realistic one. However, once the dust settles, it becomes clear that the story’s conclusion is like many turning points in Alethea’s journey. It is not the result of any revelation, escape or rebellion on Alethea’s part but due simply, and beautifully mundanely, to chance. Now, this certainly wasn’t an easy read; the realities of the protagonist, Alethea, living in Trinidad and Tobago dealing with abuse from her partner Leo and childhood trauma is harrowing. Themes of physical and mental abuse, incest, colourism, and death surround her story, alongside having an affair with her boss it is clear she is keeping busy and “dealing” with her situation to the best of her abilities. While admiring Jerry's display, Allie, Jerry, and Tamika see a woman named Carol George running through the street and screaming. Her abusive husband chases, shoots, and kills her. When police arrive, they kill the husband. The scene haunts Allie, but she does not want to believe her situation is anything like Carol's. Alethea Lopez is about to turn 40. Fashionable, feisty and fiercely independent, she manages a boutique in Port of Spain, but behind closed doors she's covering up bruises from her abusive partner and seeking solace in an affair with her boss. When she witnesses a woman murdered by a jealous lover, the reality of her own future comes a little too close to home.When Allie is a little girl, she lives with her mother Marcia, or Mammie. When Allie is roughly five years old, her uncle Allan shows up in her home with his young son Colin. He tells his sister that Colin's mother has abandoned them and he needs her to raise Colin. For a few days, Mammie and Allie assume Colin's care. Allie immediately falls in love with Colin and sees him as her brother, although she understands him to be her cousin. Not long later, Allan reinserts himself into the family. He begins sexually abusing Allie. Because Mammie has had a history of emotionally and verbally abusing Allie, too, she does nothing to stop Allan's aggression.