This One Sky Day: LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2022

Product Information

Does one ‘become’ a writer? I think I always was one. My parents love language, and I have the same tendency to anecdote and delight in fiddling language. A story luxuriously and confidently told, which is sumptuous from sentence to sentence. There is both literal and literary magic here.' Ross uses this familiarity to great effect as she introduces us to the surreal elements of Popisho, often turning the mundane into something spectacular to show how characters struggle with public and private traumas. One running theme to this effect is the butterfly vs moth dichotomy. But possessing magic does not save the protagonists from themselves. Anise fails to heal her own body and suffers the loss and trauma of numerous miscarriages and ultimately rejection by her husband. Romanza might see truth clearly but that simply heightens his physical pain and lonely, marginalised existence as a queer person. While growing up in Popisho, one learns the art of eating a butterfly for the intoxication it brings. Not for Xavier. He is haunted by a moth addiction that ‘killed you over time, like revenge.’ Guilt and grief at his wife’s suicide keep pace with his steps wherever he goes. As Xavier becomes more at ease with the water, allowing gracious stingrays to transport him over the rippling waves, he remarks that “to be alive [is] a gamble, a bizarre miracle”. Ross invites us also to suspend our scepticism, to take a risk and wholly immerse ourselves in the wildness and weirdness of Popisho. This is a novel that will reward those who are able to surrender to its capaciousness and eccentricities, to revel in its oddness and delight in each surprise. But This One Sky Day provides us not merely with a welcome opportunity to enjoy a madcap, freewheeling ride through surreal and supernatural territory. It also asserts the importance of interacting with our own unpredictable world with openness, unfettered awe and wide-eyed wonder.

Romanza Intiasar, the disowned teenage son of the Governor, whose cors is the facility to tell truth from lies, has fled the family home to live among the indigents with his male lover, Pilar. During the course of the day he comes across Xavier Redchoose — the novel’s central character — gifted with the ability to impress flavour into food, with the mere touch of his fingers. This awesome endowment has earned him the title of ‘macaenus,’ which carries with it the obligation to feed every citizen, once, and at an opportune time, in his restaurant — aptly called The Torn Poem. On the day in question, Xavier has been asked by the Governor to prepare the wedding feast for his daughter, Sonteine, and the request, more especially the man who has made it, vexes him greatly. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. A story luxuriously and confidently told, which is sumptuous from sentence to sentence. There is both literal and literary magic here.’One of the features of island life is the preponderance of butterflies, which can be grabbed in mid-flight and eaten, offsetting a brief but glorious intoxication. If butterfly-quaffing is the equivalent of a fine wine or a spliff of quality ganja, the consumption of moth is something darker, shameful and more dangerous: a Popisho version of crystal meth. Xavier is a conflicted man, haunted both by the ghost of his dead wife and his addiction to moth. He has been in recovery for quite some time, but when a young fisherman gifts him a prize moth, he secretes it carefully away in a cloth pouch and carries it with him, just in case. London used to speak to me. Miles away and long ago, before finding myself, and my one true love, before planting myself in soil I will only ever mostly understand, London smiled at me, showed me how to see light. It didn’t take much, just a small, kindly act of magic. Most places are like that, if you look carefully enough and with the right eyes. There is always light around us, so long as we have the eyes to see it. Impressively, however, Ross almost always handles the vast range of material and the multi-tonal quality of the text with an adroitness that keeps the reader involved. There is a particularly mesmerising episode in the middle of the novel when Romanza and Xavier take a boat to the mysterious Dead Islands, where the archipelago’s ostracised “Indigent” peoples live. Much to Xavier’s confusion, the anchor is dropped miles from shore. Romanza disembarks and seemingly begins to walk on water, heading for the dry land in the distance. He teaches a nervous Xavier to do the same, leading the way, showing Xavier how to make use of a sprawling platform of coral close to the surface, how to gently rest his soles on fish that will propel him on. Similarly, because of the easy confidence of the narrative voice throughout the novel – by turns raconteurish and gnomic – we too willingly follow as it wends its capricious way. I am not disappointed. It’s only July, but I can confidently declare This One Sky Day/Popisho as one of my favourite reads for 2021. This book is bursting at the seams with beauty! Magic! Love! Imagination! It is a burst of colour and flame.’

Throughout the novel, characters eat butterflies as a part of their socialisation and entertainment. It is commonplace and no one really cares about butterfly use, even if someone eats too many, or eats them the wrong way. Anise’s neighbour, for example, loves to hunt for sleeping butterflies and eat them before breakfast.

Recommended For You

Anise, on the other hand, has a problem that forces her outside. Her neighbour tells her that her husband, Tan-Tan, is having an affair – and a child – with someone else. Distressed and angry, Anise sets out on a journey to confront Tan-Tan and find this rumoured lover.