An excerpt from my review of We Kiss Them With Rain by South African writer Futhi Ntshingila, which can be read in its entirety over at Necessary Fiction. It might be the mood I’m in, but I’m finding subtle allusions to the Victorian-era in quite a few of the books I’ve been reading. Frankenstein In Baghdad is the most blatant call-out, but there’s also The Governesses by Anne Serre,  Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefroy… and, of course, this novel. The writing in these books feels more-than-a-little old-fashioned, with a hint of a moral/life-lesson at the end. Of course this might all be entirely in my head, but it’s definitely something I’m going to be thinking about as I look back on 2018.

We Kiss Them With Rain is a social novel, more in line with the works of twentieth century writers like Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck and Richard Wright,* than crusaders of the modern era. Like those earlier works, it is written with a dual purpose – to both entertain and inform – and relies on a series of somewhat far-fetched coincidences to resolve major plot points. The tone can be, at times, a bit earnest, but that earnestness is in service to highlighting institutional poverty, social inequality, victimization, and sexual assault. The virus is a palpable presence (the text is seeded with acronyms – HIV, AIDS and ARVs) and exists in the same room as the characters, like furniture. For Mvelo, who watches both Zola and Sipho die of AIDS, it is an obsession.

It was that day, when her mother’s disability grant was discontinued, that Mvelo stopped thinking any further than the day ahead. At fourteen, the girl who loved singing and laughing stopped seeing color in the world. It became dull and grey to her. She had to think like an adult to keep her mother alive. She was in a very dark place. One day she woke up and decided that school was not for her. What was the point? Once they discovered that her mother couldn’t pay, they would have to chuck her out anyway.

This is a charming book. Ntshingila’s writes simple prose, keeping comfortably within a young adult reading level. Her characters are awkwardly written, — as in one scene where Mvelo’s friend and neighbor attempts to read a Dylan Thomas poem over Zola’s grave and what is meant to be a poignant tribute becomes a belabored, if sincere, performance. What initially appears to be a flaw is ultimately a strength. The awkwardness covers the project with an unexpected blanket of authenticity. We Kiss Them With Rain is narrated in the third person, but this lack of polish on the final text makes it easy to imagine fictional Mvelo being the book’s actual/model author, writing her own story as if it were someone else’s. Little life lessons are sprinkled throughout, balancing the instructional (characters are constantly visiting clinics to be tested for HIV) with an aspirational happy ending. The final chapters are downright Dickensian, with an ending which encourages Ntshingila’s readers in their childlike hope that these characters – specifically Mvelo, one of the many orphans left alone in the wake of a terrible disease – will find happiness if only they follow the correct path. Not because everything is guaranteed to work out, but because she is given the gift of a future.

*Dickens was left off this list, because I didn’t want too long a string of names. But I do  call him out later in the review. His fingerprints are all over this particular book. Specifically, his way of weaving social issues into his plots without allowing them to take over or keep the story from being entertaining.