Brother

By David Chariandy

The long-awaited second novel from David Chariandy, whose debut, Soucouyant, was nominated for nearly every major literary prize in Canada and published internationally.


     An intensely beautiful, searingly powerful, tightly constructed novel, Brother explores questions of masculinity, family, race, and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough housing complex during the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991. 
     With shimmering prose and mesmerizing precision, David Chariandy takes us inside the lives of Michael and Francis. They are the sons of Trinidadian immigrants, their father has disappeared and their mother works double, sometimes triple shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise of their adopted home. 
     Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in the disparaged outskirts of a sprawling city, Michael and Francis battle against the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry -- teachers stream them into general classes; shopkeepers see them only as thieves; and strangers quicken their pace when the brothers are behind them. Always Michael and Francis escape into the cool air of the Rouge Valley, a scar of green wilderness that cuts through their neighbourhood, where they are free to imagine better lives for themselves. 
     Propelled by the pulsing beats and styles of hip hop, Francis, the older of the two brothers, dreams of a future in music. Michael's dreams are of Aisha, the smartest girl in their high school whose own eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. But the bright hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting, and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow.
     With devastating emotional force David Chariandy, a unique and exciting voice in Canadian literature, crafts a heartbreaking and timely story about the profound love that exists between brothers and the senseless loss of lives cut short with the shot of a gun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9780771021060

David Chariandy

David Chariandy grew up in Toronto and lives and teaches in Vancouver. He is the author of the novels Soucouyant, which received nominations from eleven literary awards juries, and Brother, which won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Toronto Book Award, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Aspen Words Literary Prize and nominated for the 2019 Dublin Literary Award.

Reviews for Brother

[mielniczuk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Growing up on the edge of the city and society - many years ago I read a Toronto Star article about life in Scarborough in which the reporter offhandedly mentioned that somewhere there is a young person distilling his life experience into the next great novel. This is it. .

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Powerful, bold and timely. "It wasn't just she alone. All around us in the park were mothers who had journeyed far beyond what they knew, who took day courses and worked nights, who dreamed of raising children who might have just a little more than than they did, children who might reward scsrifice and redeem a past. And there were victories, you must know. Fears were banished by the scents from simmering pots, denigration countered by a freshly laundered tablecloth. History beaten back by the provision of clothes and yearly school supplies. Examples were raised."Their mother came from Trinidad, but others in Toronto, in the housing unit called the Park came from many other places. She had to work three jobs, long bus rides, to take care of Frances and Michael. They had to raise themselves, learn how to navigate where they lived, stay away from those with bad reputations which would do them harm. Yet, she showed them beauty too, tired as she was, she took them for picnics at the creek, called Rouge. Showed then the monarch butterflies and other beauties of nature. She gave them hope that if they stayed out of trouble, they had a chance. Thdy had hope, until it was taken away.I discovered this book on Kirkuses list of books that were good but had been largely passed by. I finished this book with a big Wow, stunned by this story and the devestating turn it took, though at the end hope of a kind it once again found. The beauty of the writing, because believe me this young author can write! A timely subject, immigrants, refugees trying to circumvent a system that is stacked against them. The way they are viewed as unwanted, criminals in the making, as people who are taking away jobs and resources that should be awarded only to citizens. As I said, a powerfully bold book that deserves reading.

[triscuit_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Intense, emotional story of family love in a harsh subculture.

[twink_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

David Chariandy's first novel Soucouyant, 'was nominated for nearly every major literary prize in Canada and published internationally.' His second novel, Brother is recently released and it too is racking up accolades.Brother is the first reading of this author for me - and I was blown away....1991 Scarborough, Ontario. Michael and Francis are the children of Trinidadian immigrants, living with their mother in a housing complex in this urban center. Their mother dreams of more and better for her sons and works tirelessly to ensure this happens. The boys also imagine their futures. Francis in the music industry and Michael dreams of a life with Aisha, far from the concrete walls of 'The Park'.But in 1991 Scarborough, racial tensions are running high, violence is becoming part of everyday life, police presence is heavy and prejudices are rampant. Those hopes and dreams of the three members of this family are changed forever by the violence of that year.Brother is told in a back and forth timeline spanning ten years. In the present we learn about the past as the book progresses.Brother is a slim novel, but it took me a while to read it. I had to put the book down numerous times - to absorb and avoid the inevitability of what was coming next - even though I knew what that was. The story is real - and raw. Chariandy's prose are absolutely beautiful, drawing you in and wrapping themselves around you. I cried more than once as I read.As a mother, that is where I felt that punch the hardest - her hopes, dreams and desires for her children. And the undercurrent of the loss of her own wants and desires. Her perseverance, fortitude and strength resonated with me - even as it eroded and collided with ugly reality. I'm sickened by the indignities, attitudes and prejudices depicted. Even more so as I know they are not fiction. But those moments are juxtaposed and tempered by the acts of love, joy and happiness that also part of the life of this family.Brother speaks to the immigrant experience, to family, love, loss, hope, duty and desires. And the fact that the past is still the present. Absolutely, positively recommended reading.

[jane3phillips-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Brother" is the story of brothers Michael and Francis who are being raised by their mother, a Trinidadian immigrant, in Scarborough, Toronto in the 80s and 90s. As they come of age in the hip hop scene, their world is turned upside down in the wake of a tragic shooting. Told through Michael's eyes, this novel expertly weaves the past with the present to tell this story of brotherly love. It's a short novel (less than 200 pages) and I found it flowed nicely and was very readable.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brother, by David Chariandy, is an important and timely novel. It is composed with language that is precise and rhythmic. It is a novel that jumps around in time quite a bit, and only provides the pieces which frame the story in the concluding chapters. Once assembled, the story is perhaps a bit thin.Largely, Brother is character driven and this is where it is strongest. As a character-focused reader, I thought the cast was great, but this 170-page novel didn't give ample room for everyone to be developed as much as I would've liked. I had a good sense of Michael and Francis, the main foci of the story, but would've appreciated more from secondary characters such as Jelly and Aisha.Overall, this is a good novel. My biggest critiques are that it is disjointed and not developed as fully as I would've liked, but the skeleton of a great story is here, and the life that pulsate through these pages is strong.

[lindsay_w_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brother has two storylines intertwined. One is a family’s life in 90s Scarborough Ontario leading up to the shooting death of the brother (not a spoiler). The other is how the mother and brother left behind have dealt with this loss ten years later. The sad part of the brother’s shooting is that it is still happening today. Marginalized brown and black youth like Francis feel trapped and hopeless about their futures amid seemingly inescapable institutionalized racism and unrelenting police scrutiny.

[romonko · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a remarkable little book! So much is said in so few words! It takes a special talent to be a minimalist writer and still get so much covered and said. This is a coming of age book about two brothers whose parents were Trinidadian immigrants to Canada. Francis and Michael are only a year apart, but Francis has always taken care of his little brother. Their father had left them when the boys were really young and their mother worked long hours trying to provide for them. The book takes place in Scarborough, Ontario in a mostly immigrant neighbourhood in the summer of 1991. Their mother has big plans for her boys having a chance at a good life, and works long hours to provide for them. But the influences of the gangs and criminals in and around their neighbourhood keep creeping into the boys' realm. Francis is drawn further and further into the gang life, until a tragedy occurs that rips Michael and his mom's world apart. With brilliant and spellbinding prose, Chariarty outlines this coming-of-age story about a young boy growing up in a hardscrabble and dangerous neighbourhood, and how the violence that exists outside the door, escalates and ends up breaking through and ripping the lives of families apart. I am totally in awe of the skill of this writer with this his first book, and so proud that he is another Canadian rising star in the writing world..

[beth.clarke · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brother's real characters and their immigrant dream gone wrong made this book amazing. Chariandy's writing unfolds the storyline in a way that readers understand the feelings of each. I loved the Canadian touches to the book such as Tim Horton's and yet found a Canada that I didn't know existed. Chariandy opens a dark, authentic immigrant story.

[icolford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In Brother, his second novel, David Chariandy describes the complex relationship of two brothers, Francis and Michael, sons of a Trinidadian mother who immigrated to Canada with hopes of becoming a nurse but who instead wore herself out with years of menial labour as she raised her boys on her own and tried to keep food on the table. The book is narrated by younger son Michael. Years after Francis’ death, the visit to the old neighbourhood of childhood friend Aisha has triggered Michael’s recollections of growing up in a crumbling and dangerous Toronto public housing complex. Michael, who has come of age on streets filled with criminal activity, drugs and gang violence, characterizes himself as artistically inclined and somewhat naïve. In his recollections, Francis, who as a teen aspired to a career in music, exudes confidence and mingles easily with the street crowd. Michael though is awkward and unsure of himself. The brothers grow up frequently unattended because their mother is working two or three jobs, and Francis assumes the role of his younger brother’s protector and defender, taking pains to shield Michael from both the coarser realities as well as the allure of the street culture in which they are immersed. Francis is initially tender and protective toward his mother, though he later grows distant and secretive. He is also quick to anger and doesn’t hesitate to use his fists, especially when drunk or high, and it is this volatility that gets him into trouble. At the time of Aisha’s visit, Michael, now in his twenties, still lives with his mother, who has never stopped mourning her elder son, though now their roles are reversed, and it is Michael doing the watching and protecting and worrying. Michael’s story of his brother’s short life builds to a violent and tragic climax, and along the way draws a portrait of a vital and self-sufficient community populated by immigrants that is neglected by and culturally isolated from the society that promised to welcome them with open arms, and which is often the target of police suspicion and harassment. Though Francis’ fate is inevitable, Chariandy builds suspense in expert fashion while telling an essential story of young people whose dreams and hopes for the future clash with social structures that seem designed to keep them firmly in their place.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very powerful story about a family of Trinidadian immigrants living in Toronto. Ruth is a single mother, raising Francis and his younger brother, Michael. We see the boys growing up and becoming involved in the music scene. But we also see the darker side of racism, which many Canadians like to think isn't an issue here. The boys witness the killing of a young black man and are subsequently "profiled" by the police for possible involvement in criminal activity. What makes this story so moving is that we see the hopefulness of making a new life stolen away from Ruth and her boys. It is fiction, but all too often, mirrors fact.Very well written

[alangilbert-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A moving, sharply written story of two brothers growing up in a suburb of Toronto in the 1980s & 90s. This short novel uses a laser like attention to a few moments in the boys young life to create an intimate portrait of the lives of children of immigrants, struggling to make a life. Keenly focused in it's milieu, it uses this to create emotional connections in the reader that speak to universal desires, feelings and concerns.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book has been chosen as one of the five for Canada Reads 2019. The theme for Canada Reads this year is One Book To Move You and I can see how it fits into the theme. I'm sure for some people, probably younger than me, it would really move them. I thought it was well-written but I can't say I was really moved by it.Michael is the younger son of a Trinidadian couple who emigrated to Canada before the children were born. Now Michael's mother, Ruth, is raising Michael and Francis on her own in a massive housing project in Scarborough. Ruth works at various cleaning jobs to provide for the boys. She is quite often bone-tired when she comes home but from a young age Francis tries to make her feel better. Both boys are often left on their own while their mother works. They live close to a ravine which becomes a place where they go to play. As the boys get older Francis starts hanging out with a group of boys who seem destined to run afoul of the police. Francis' close friend (and possibly more) Jelly is a gifted DJ and may have a chance at stardom. Unfortunately an encounter leaves Francis dead and his brother and mother are thrown into an extended period of grief. It is only the return of a neighbour girl who has made it good that brings a change to their lives.I liked the character of Aisha, the neighbourhood girl, but I never felt I quite got a handle on Francis and Michael. I also liked the musical references that flowed through the narrative. The neighbourhood also seemed a character in the book; I really felt like I had walked the streets. Ironically I believe the ravine that the boys and their mother explored is now one of the newest federal parks, Rouge National Urban Park.

[toddtyrtle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every once in a while I find a book that is so good, so compelling that I find myself reading it in every free minute. While I'm waiting for my eggs to be ready to flip, read a few pages, while I'm in the elevator to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer, read a few more, while eating dinner, read more, read and read before bed until you are so tired you read the same paragraph six times before finally having to admit, one hour after you normally are asleep, you really can't possibly read any more. A book of this length often takes a week or more for me and this was done in two days. And now I'm sad because it's over and I'll never read it for the first time again and these characters I love will be gone. I'll miss them.

I've been to this part of Scarborough several times, sometimes going to visit the library in the area on a project to visit all of Toronto's libraries. Other times I cycled through the Rouge valley myself. So of course I had a lot of mental images as I read. And now when I ride through there on my bike again part of me will be looking for folks, wondering how they're all doing.

This one's going to be a hard one to follow.

[girlwellread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A special thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and McClelland & Stewart for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.This gorgeous and powerful novel is the winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, longlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize, a Globe and Mail Best Book, and a Quill & Quire Best Book of 2017. Brother is a tight and compact novel that packs a huge punch. Chariandy explores questions of race, class, family, identity, and social standing. Set in a Scarborough housing complex during the summer of 1991, violence is at a peak as is the heat. Michael and Francis, the brothers, are the sons of Trinidadian immigrants. Their father has disappeared and to keep them afloat, their mother works double/triple shifts so that her boys have every opportunity in their adopted homeland.This coming-of-age story takes place in The Park—a cluster of town homes in the outskirts of one of Canada's major cities. The boys' options are limited as they battle against stereotypes, prejudices, poverty, and the low expectations that confront young black men; they are perceived as thieves from shopkeepers, less intelligent from their teachers, and strangers fear them. The brothers' only escape is the Rouge Valley, a lush green wilderness that perforates their neighbourhood, and it is here where they imagine a better life from what they are destined for.The boys witness a tragic shooting of an acquaintance, a boy named Anton, and they are handcuffed and roughed up by the police. The police crack down on hem, and in doing so, suffocate their hopes and dreams of a better life. It is this event that drives Francis' anger and pulls away from his family and into his gang—a group of boys who are interested the exploration of music in the form of hip hop in its infancy. Chariandy's novel is a devastatingly emotional piece. It opens ten years after the event that altered their family and left their mother constrained by grief. The family still live in the same rundown apartment although the roles are now reversed and it is Michael who is the caregiver to his mother in her fragile state. The narrative shifts between past and present and it is the sheer force of it that drives the story. Short in length, but lasting, this story will linger with the reader long after the last page is turned.

[beechwood-162121 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book written in 2017 is exactly how things are still similar in Toronto today. Maybe even worse in 2023. Very well written. Great book.

[bearlyr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In my opinion, this book is not a page turner. I agree that every book should not be a page turner, but this story could have easily benefited from more colorful dialogue and language. I wanted to see what happened, but found it easy to choose another book when sitting down to read. This doesn’t mean this isn’t a good story, it just isn’t gripping enough. I thank the author for this glimpse into the lives of people in different circumstances than mine. This is a good read, and taught me about something unfortunately foreign to me.