That Reminds Me

Owusu’s impressionistic debut follows a young man of Ghanaian descent who comes of age in contemporary London. K, the narrator and an abused foster child, describes the poverty he faces as a member of the Black working class and his experiences in school, where he is alternately invisible and an object of fascination by classmates. Noting his response to the film The Color Purple, he reflects on how he “wrote Celie out of her story and added her to mine.” Such is the connection he has with her despair. K is on a downward spiral shaped by riots, his younger brother’s violent crimes, and self-harm (his drinking and pill taking exacerbate his suicidal thoughts). Eventually, he’s diagnosed with bipolar disorder and gets treatment at a mental health facility. Owusu’s prose is low on concrete details as to what’s going on, but it features vivid passages that range from poetic (“My side of the bed is still tender with my silhouette”) to musical (“I arrived at this ailment with no one trailing, no roses twirling”). It amounts to a short, sharp, and stinging tone poem that the reader won’t want to put down. (June)