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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
A haunting and powerful first novel that views the streets of Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa through the eyes of Sepha who, seventeen years ago, fled Ethiopia during the Revolution, and now runs a failing convenience store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington. Published as The Beautiful Thing That Heaven Bears in the USA, Canada and Australia; and as Children of the Revolution in the UK.
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents' jewelry to pay for passage to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago.
Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors-Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter-who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again.
Told in a haunting and powerful first-person narration that casts the streets of Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa through Sepha's eyes, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a deeply affecting and unforgettable debut novel about what it means to lose a family and a country-and what it takes to create a new home.
Published as The Beautiful Thing That Heaven Bears in the USA, Canada and Australia; and as Children of the Revolution in the UK. Winner of the Guardian (UK) 2007 book award.
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents' jewelry to pay for passage to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago.
Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors-Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter-who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again.
Told in a haunting and powerful first-person narration that casts the streets of Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa through Sepha's eyes, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a deeply affecting and unforgettable debut novel about what it means to lose a family and a country-and what it takes to create a new home.
Published as The Beautiful Thing That Heaven Bears in the USA, Canada and Australia; and as Children of the Revolution in the UK. Winner of the Guardian (UK) 2007 book award.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2007
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About the author
Dinaw Mengestu
18books444followersLeft Ethiopia at age two and was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Graduated from Georgetown University and received his MFA from Columbia University. In 2010 he was chosen as one of the 20 best writers under 40 by The New Yorker.
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June 21, 2021
IL SEVERO CAPO CHINO DELL’AFRICA SEMBRA UNA TESTA DI UNA DONNA AVVOLTA NELLO SCIALLE
I had never really left Ethiopia, Addis Ababa 2004, foto Paolo Pellegrin-Magnum.
Sepha fugge dall’Etiopia dopo che i militari hanno ucciso suo padre; lascia dietro la madre e il fratello più piccolo, e se li porta dentro ben serrati nella memoria.
Arriva in US, a Washington, si appoggia allo zio, anche lui espatriato, emigrante, profugo, esule, rifugiato, fuggitivo�
Dopo un po� di tempo, arriva il momento in cui sente di doversi muovere con le sue forze, il momento per esplorare nuovi territori e nuove esperienze.
Logan Circle, la piazza dove affaccia il negozio di Sepha a Washington, D.C.
Non va molto lontano Sepha, il senso di sradicamento rimane, non riesce a superarlo del tutto: però riesce ad abborracciare una forma di esistenza in un quartiere povero della capitale aprendo un piccolo market, dove la notte gode della compagnia di prostitute e clienti che rendono il posto meno triste e deserto.
Poi, le visite degli amici, un congolese e un keniota.
Un tran tran che potrebbe durare a lungo se nel quartiere non si trasferisse una coppia speciale: Judith e sua figlia Naomi.
La bella casa di Judith e Naomi all’angolo con Logan Circle.
La ragazzina ha sangue misto, il padre è un professore di economia della Mauritania: sarà questo che la spinge a fare frequenti visite a Sepha, a trascorrere ore e pomeriggi interi nel suo piccolo negozio?
Sarà la mancanza della figura paterna che la tiene inchiodata mentre l’etiope le legge “I fratelli Karamazov�?
Judith è bianca, ha ristrutturato splendidamente la casa sulla piazza proprio di fronte al negozio, e una sera invita a cena Sepha�
Mengestu da piccolo con la sorella
Sepha vorrebbe essere fedele a due patrie, non tradire quella d’origine in Africa, e abbracciare quella nuova che l’ha accolto in Occidente.
Ma sa che ciò a cui si fa ritorno non potrà mai essere quello che abbiamo lasciato.
Neppure il paese della grande libertà è riuscito a sconfiggere i pregiudizi, né di classe né di colore della pelle.
Mi è piaciuto questo romanzo, esordio di Dinaw Mengestu.
Tra le altre cose, è anche una prospettiva diversa al tema dell’emigrazione.
Foto Paolo Pellegrin-Magnum.
I had never really left Ethiopia, Addis Ababa 2004, foto Paolo Pellegrin-Magnum.
Sepha fugge dall’Etiopia dopo che i militari hanno ucciso suo padre; lascia dietro la madre e il fratello più piccolo, e se li porta dentro ben serrati nella memoria.
Arriva in US, a Washington, si appoggia allo zio, anche lui espatriato, emigrante, profugo, esule, rifugiato, fuggitivo�
Dopo un po� di tempo, arriva il momento in cui sente di doversi muovere con le sue forze, il momento per esplorare nuovi territori e nuove esperienze.
Logan Circle, la piazza dove affaccia il negozio di Sepha a Washington, D.C.
Non va molto lontano Sepha, il senso di sradicamento rimane, non riesce a superarlo del tutto: però riesce ad abborracciare una forma di esistenza in un quartiere povero della capitale aprendo un piccolo market, dove la notte gode della compagnia di prostitute e clienti che rendono il posto meno triste e deserto.
Poi, le visite degli amici, un congolese e un keniota.
Un tran tran che potrebbe durare a lungo se nel quartiere non si trasferisse una coppia speciale: Judith e sua figlia Naomi.
La bella casa di Judith e Naomi all’angolo con Logan Circle.
La ragazzina ha sangue misto, il padre è un professore di economia della Mauritania: sarà questo che la spinge a fare frequenti visite a Sepha, a trascorrere ore e pomeriggi interi nel suo piccolo negozio?
Sarà la mancanza della figura paterna che la tiene inchiodata mentre l’etiope le legge “I fratelli Karamazov�?
Judith è bianca, ha ristrutturato splendidamente la casa sulla piazza proprio di fronte al negozio, e una sera invita a cena Sepha�
Mengestu da piccolo con la sorella
Sepha vorrebbe essere fedele a due patrie, non tradire quella d’origine in Africa, e abbracciare quella nuova che l’ha accolto in Occidente.
Ma sa che ciò a cui si fa ritorno non potrà mai essere quello che abbiamo lasciato.
Neppure il paese della grande libertà è riuscito a sconfiggere i pregiudizi, né di classe né di colore della pelle.
Mi è piaciuto questo romanzo, esordio di Dinaw Mengestu.
Tra le altre cose, è anche una prospettiva diversa al tema dell’emigrazione.
Foto Paolo Pellegrin-Magnum.
April 20, 2008
This is a magnificently simple book. Deceptively simple, like the Old Man and the Sea, in that you breeze through it and think "nice story" but when you pause for one moment and think about it, you realize that it is so much more than a nice story.
A blend of the political uncertainties and accompanying atrocities of the African continent with the ever present class struggles (overlaid by racial tension) of America. The parallels and similarities are clear but woven through the book in a way that respects the readers' abilities to understand them on their own.
It is also a tale of immigrants blending together the lives they left behind with the lives they are leading with the lives they want to have and justifying the possibilities.
It is a sensitive book and a kind book, full of passion yet gently written. It is a book that causes thought but one cannot say it is a clever book. "Clever" implies that games were played and to say that about this book would be a jab to its heart.
A blend of the political uncertainties and accompanying atrocities of the African continent with the ever present class struggles (overlaid by racial tension) of America. The parallels and similarities are clear but woven through the book in a way that respects the readers' abilities to understand them on their own.
It is also a tale of immigrants blending together the lives they left behind with the lives they are leading with the lives they want to have and justifying the possibilities.
It is a sensitive book and a kind book, full of passion yet gently written. It is a book that causes thought but one cannot say it is a clever book. "Clever" implies that games were played and to say that about this book would be a jab to its heart.
March 16, 2010
Big disappointment. This is all about an Ethiopian refugee who's now been in Washington DC for 17 years and runs a grocery store in a poor neighbourhood. Now the author must know whereof he speaks, but I could hardly believe the picture he painted. In 17 years, we are to understand that Sepha, our immigrant, has made precisely two friends. And these two friends have only made two friends - each other. And none of these three immigrant friends have got married or had any long term relationships. Really? Their lives have been lived in a state of suspended animation otherwise known as mild coma, life as it is lived when you can't find the remote control. I may be as far as it is possible from being an Ethiopian immigrant, but I could not believe this stuff.
The other thing is that this novel is relentlessly downbeat. You scour the pages for an echo of an upbeat - oh, was that one? Nah. Everything goes from bad to worse. If a little sprig of hope grows up (as in the lovely friendship between Sepha and his neighbour's daughter) you can be sure it will be squashed without mercy a few pages down the line.
Eventually - well, actually quite quickly - this novel wears out its welcome. Sepha is such a refined, Dostoievsky-munching languid deadbeat. He can't be arsed to open up his shop most of the time. He lets everything fall into graceless decay, and that's okay by him because - well, because of the ghastly trauma suffered back in Addis Ababa when his father was shot as an imperialist lackey. That's bad all right, and it might be enough to paralyse the son's life. So okay, make this guy a minor character in some other Ethiopian immigrant's story, instead of making us wade through 228 pages of moping about.
The other thing is that this novel is relentlessly downbeat. You scour the pages for an echo of an upbeat - oh, was that one? Nah. Everything goes from bad to worse. If a little sprig of hope grows up (as in the lovely friendship between Sepha and his neighbour's daughter) you can be sure it will be squashed without mercy a few pages down the line.
Eventually - well, actually quite quickly - this novel wears out its welcome. Sepha is such a refined, Dostoievsky-munching languid deadbeat. He can't be arsed to open up his shop most of the time. He lets everything fall into graceless decay, and that's okay by him because - well, because of the ghastly trauma suffered back in Addis Ababa when his father was shot as an imperialist lackey. That's bad all right, and it might be enough to paralyse the son's life. So okay, make this guy a minor character in some other Ethiopian immigrant's story, instead of making us wade through 228 pages of moping about.
February 15, 2021
Hell every day with only glimpses of heaven in between.
An early birthday present from a friend sent this book my way and I stayed awake for three nights, basking in the profundity of the lucid storytelling.
Why this novel rates lower than expected on ŷ, I'm not sure. However, I am thrilled it found me. This is a novel that distills longing and loneliness in a such way that makes only a crass reader unable to empathize with the internal struggles of this protagonist, Stephanos.
A corner store owner and former child refugee who escaped after witnessing trauma, Stepha finds himself in a poor, African-American neighborhood enduring gentrification in Washington D.C.
Stepha spends his days in his rundown corner store dealing with undiagnosed post-trauma, some days opening his store at inconsistent hours. As a child in Ethiopia, he witnessed his father dragged out of his home. To save his life, his mother begged him to escape. He was uprooted from his home and now he knows he cannot go back.
He delivers milk to an older African-American neighbor frequently, provides cheap candy for kids walking from school, keeps his store open for prostitutes needing to buy condoms at night, stocks bottled water for the new early-morning joggers who recently moved into the neighborhood.
He lives in a small, poorly furnished apartment. When he gets drunk with his friends, Joseph and Kenneth, they memorize the names of dictators and various coup d'état from around Africa. He loves reading Dostoevsky, specifically, The Brothers Karamazov. His friend, Joseph, loves poetry; in fact, the name of this book, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, is from Dante.
He and his friends think of themselves as children of the revolution, but deep down they know they are not. They are only survivors thrown into a new society where they do not feel like they belong. The only thing they have fought for is the right to live.
He has bursts of beauty when he falls in love with a white woman and her daughter. They move into his neighborhood, refurbish an old house, purchase items at his store, ask his opinion on matters, invite him to meals. He wants to see himself as the person he would have been if his family had not been destroyed. The world is at once bright and beautiful. There is hope. But even hope can feel unreachable when one thinks oneself guilty of hyperinflated optimism, when too many social inequities are at stake.
Somehow Stepha's solitude and how he views his inadequacies remind me of Haňťa's in . His story of nostalgia, pain, regret and deep melancholy is one shared by countless who have escaped upheaval, only to realize that there really is no paradise: "we forget who we are and where we came from, and in so doing, believe we are entitled to much more than we deserve." .
An early birthday present from a friend sent this book my way and I stayed awake for three nights, basking in the profundity of the lucid storytelling.
Why this novel rates lower than expected on ŷ, I'm not sure. However, I am thrilled it found me. This is a novel that distills longing and loneliness in a such way that makes only a crass reader unable to empathize with the internal struggles of this protagonist, Stephanos.
A corner store owner and former child refugee who escaped after witnessing trauma, Stepha finds himself in a poor, African-American neighborhood enduring gentrification in Washington D.C.
Stepha spends his days in his rundown corner store dealing with undiagnosed post-trauma, some days opening his store at inconsistent hours. As a child in Ethiopia, he witnessed his father dragged out of his home. To save his life, his mother begged him to escape. He was uprooted from his home and now he knows he cannot go back.
He delivers milk to an older African-American neighbor frequently, provides cheap candy for kids walking from school, keeps his store open for prostitutes needing to buy condoms at night, stocks bottled water for the new early-morning joggers who recently moved into the neighborhood.
He lives in a small, poorly furnished apartment. When he gets drunk with his friends, Joseph and Kenneth, they memorize the names of dictators and various coup d'état from around Africa. He loves reading Dostoevsky, specifically, The Brothers Karamazov. His friend, Joseph, loves poetry; in fact, the name of this book, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, is from Dante.
He and his friends think of themselves as children of the revolution, but deep down they know they are not. They are only survivors thrown into a new society where they do not feel like they belong. The only thing they have fought for is the right to live.
He has bursts of beauty when he falls in love with a white woman and her daughter. They move into his neighborhood, refurbish an old house, purchase items at his store, ask his opinion on matters, invite him to meals. He wants to see himself as the person he would have been if his family had not been destroyed. The world is at once bright and beautiful. There is hope. But even hope can feel unreachable when one thinks oneself guilty of hyperinflated optimism, when too many social inequities are at stake.
Somehow Stepha's solitude and how he views his inadequacies remind me of Haňťa's in . His story of nostalgia, pain, regret and deep melancholy is one shared by countless who have escaped upheaval, only to realize that there really is no paradise: "we forget who we are and where we came from, and in so doing, believe we are entitled to much more than we deserve." .
August 17, 2023
He fled the revolution In Ethiopia and came to America, To a neighborhood in Washington DC where he opened up a grocery store.
This was a quiet story, or so it seemed. But it could have Ben because the narrator had a soft voice, a masculine soft voice. And this added to the beauty of the story.
He wasn't much of a businessman, and maybe he just did not like the grocery business because He close the store anytime he felt like it and On some mornings he didn't open it at all. He was the same in his relationship with a woman. But in this case, sometimes he was just wise.
And then some landlords raise the rinse, Just to get the poor out of the neighborhood, to gentrified. And this is what is wrong in America today, this is why we have some people living on the streets. And now we are being told that are economy is the best it's ever been. If so why are there 10 cities all over America? Why does it look like the depression, the great depression ?
This was a quiet story, or so it seemed. But it could have Ben because the narrator had a soft voice, a masculine soft voice. And this added to the beauty of the story.
He wasn't much of a businessman, and maybe he just did not like the grocery business because He close the store anytime he felt like it and On some mornings he didn't open it at all. He was the same in his relationship with a woman. But in this case, sometimes he was just wise.
And then some landlords raise the rinse, Just to get the poor out of the neighborhood, to gentrified. And this is what is wrong in America today, this is why we have some people living on the streets. And now we are being told that are economy is the best it's ever been. If so why are there 10 cities all over America? Why does it look like the depression, the great depression ?
June 12, 2011
wow--what a compact, melancholy little novel. written in overlapping layers as the narrator grapples with what has become of his life, it's almost like a snowglobe of sadness, isolation, regret, and loss. shake it, and you see fragments of Sepha's family life in Addis Ababa; shake it again, and you see fragments of his friendship with two other African immigrants, apparently his only close and sustained friendships in America; shake it yet again, you see him navigate with poignancy a new friendship with the biracial daughter of the white woman who moved into the neighborhood and you see him navigate his complex feelings of attraction to the white woman; shake it again and you see the complexity of a typical DC neighborhood left to rot after the 1968 riots and struggling now with creeping gentrification. Sepha is not really one of the people of the neighborhood, despite having lived there for a long time, and the white woman, Judith, definitely is not--Judith is part of the scorned "they." in the neighborhood where i lived in DC for eight years "they" (myself included even though i bought my house before gentrification took off and i failed to renovate until i wanted to move) were called "new people," which always made me laugh because it only ever referred to white people; a black person moving in to the neighborhood and fixing up a house was never called "new people."
The Logan Circle that Mengestu described through Sepha's story rang true with me and made me wish we had more such literary gems about DC. We have an overabundance of spy thrillers, crime thrillers, voyeuristic tales about the movers and shakers in government, lobby firms, white-shoe law firms, etc...which turns DC into a bit of a caricature. DC is so much more than that. it's a small city that happens to hold the seat of government, but it's full of neighborhoods full of normal everyday people who cover the spectrum of socio-economic status--from chronically homeless and possibly psychotic to large populations of immigrants working three jobs to black or white middle-class to ridiculously wealthy, white or black.
the neighborhoods of DC have been rather segregated for decades now, but something happened in the late 1990s that turned the tide. broken down neighborhoods that had been neglected for nearly two generations suddenly became desirable. Disenfranchised people suddenly found themselves threatened with dispossession, if not dispossessed. Young, middle-class people priced out of more "appropriate" neighborhoods, see a chance to live in the city and become part of it but have to struggle with invisible barriers they don't understand. Developers and the Office of Tax and Revenue see a grand opportunity, in some cases razing entire neighborhoods that had been the home of entrenched open-air drug markets for at least twenty years in order to build beautiful modern office buildings, high-scale apartments and condos, and a new baseball stadium. Mengestu captures this dynamic in a subtle, frank way that left me wishing that more writers would take the time to write about this DC.
The Logan Circle that Mengestu described through Sepha's story rang true with me and made me wish we had more such literary gems about DC. We have an overabundance of spy thrillers, crime thrillers, voyeuristic tales about the movers and shakers in government, lobby firms, white-shoe law firms, etc...which turns DC into a bit of a caricature. DC is so much more than that. it's a small city that happens to hold the seat of government, but it's full of neighborhoods full of normal everyday people who cover the spectrum of socio-economic status--from chronically homeless and possibly psychotic to large populations of immigrants working three jobs to black or white middle-class to ridiculously wealthy, white or black.
the neighborhoods of DC have been rather segregated for decades now, but something happened in the late 1990s that turned the tide. broken down neighborhoods that had been neglected for nearly two generations suddenly became desirable. Disenfranchised people suddenly found themselves threatened with dispossession, if not dispossessed. Young, middle-class people priced out of more "appropriate" neighborhoods, see a chance to live in the city and become part of it but have to struggle with invisible barriers they don't understand. Developers and the Office of Tax and Revenue see a grand opportunity, in some cases razing entire neighborhoods that had been the home of entrenched open-air drug markets for at least twenty years in order to build beautiful modern office buildings, high-scale apartments and condos, and a new baseball stadium. Mengestu captures this dynamic in a subtle, frank way that left me wishing that more writers would take the time to write about this DC.
July 24, 2008
was the July selection for my book club, but I almost didn't read it because I knew I wouldn't be able to make the actual meeting. But, I decided to read it anyway and I'm glad I did.
My expectations going in may have shaped my feelings about the book. I knew that it was written by an Ethiopian immigrant and that it was about the Ethiopian immigrant experience in Washington, D.C. Before picking it up, I assumed it was a memoir. I thought it would be dense and that my main motivation for turning each page would be because it was something I SHOULD read. I could not have been more wrong. It's fiction, very readable, and I learned a lot without feeling SHOULD-ed into it. Having lived in D.C. for two years, it was interesting to read a story that takes place in a familiar setting.
This is not a book, however, where much actually happens. It's the story of an Ethiopian immigrant (did I cover that?) named Stephanos who owns a corner convenience store and deli counter in Logan's Circle, which is on the cusp of gentrification. The novel unfolds in a non-linear fashion; time goes back and forth between the present day, a few years prior, the time when he first arrived in the U.S., and his previous life in Ethiopia.
The title comes from , at the point where the poet leaves Hell. This is a fitting image, as Stephanos (and most of the other characters) seems to be in a continual state of limbo, which is Dante's first circle of Hell. When he first moved to the United States, he barely interacted with the outside world because his heart was still in Ethiopia. Now, he's barely floating through the days, struggling to keep his store in business, though "struggling" implies effort. There are a few moments where Stephanos almost grasps "the beautiful things that heaven bears," taking control of his life, but these quickly slip by. The ending seems optimistic, but is ambiguous. Does Stephanos finally leave Hell, or does he once again get swept into the circle of limbo?
Circles are a prominent metaphor in the novel - most notably, Logan Circle itself, where General Logan proudly sits atop his horse. There's also the cyclical nature of gentrification . Stephanos boasts to two tourist that wander into his store that it used to be one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the District, full of senators, congressmen, relatives of presidents; you had to have connections, money, and power to live there. Since Stephanos has lived in Logan's Circle, it had always been run-down, but declined even further as the years passed by. Soon enough, a white woman moves into and restores the deteriorating Victorian mansion next door and developers begin evicting the long-time residents. Finally, there's the circadian rhythm of Stephanos's life, where most days resemble the day before - opening the store, watching the typical flow of customers, sitting with his two friends after closing each night.
The story is sad. Not so much in the horrifically tragic way, though the flashbacks to Ethiopia are heartbreaking. It's more that there is a quiet melancholy exuding from each of the characters. The novel is character-driven, not plot-driven, and each one's despondent state provides insight into the impacts of gentrification and about what it is like to be an immigrant.
My expectations going in may have shaped my feelings about the book. I knew that it was written by an Ethiopian immigrant and that it was about the Ethiopian immigrant experience in Washington, D.C. Before picking it up, I assumed it was a memoir. I thought it would be dense and that my main motivation for turning each page would be because it was something I SHOULD read. I could not have been more wrong. It's fiction, very readable, and I learned a lot without feeling SHOULD-ed into it. Having lived in D.C. for two years, it was interesting to read a story that takes place in a familiar setting.
This is not a book, however, where much actually happens. It's the story of an Ethiopian immigrant (did I cover that?) named Stephanos who owns a corner convenience store and deli counter in Logan's Circle, which is on the cusp of gentrification. The novel unfolds in a non-linear fashion; time goes back and forth between the present day, a few years prior, the time when he first arrived in the U.S., and his previous life in Ethiopia.
The title comes from , at the point where the poet leaves Hell. This is a fitting image, as Stephanos (and most of the other characters) seems to be in a continual state of limbo, which is Dante's first circle of Hell. When he first moved to the United States, he barely interacted with the outside world because his heart was still in Ethiopia. Now, he's barely floating through the days, struggling to keep his store in business, though "struggling" implies effort. There are a few moments where Stephanos almost grasps "the beautiful things that heaven bears," taking control of his life, but these quickly slip by. The ending seems optimistic, but is ambiguous. Does Stephanos finally leave Hell, or does he once again get swept into the circle of limbo?
Circles are a prominent metaphor in the novel - most notably, Logan Circle itself, where General Logan proudly sits atop his horse. There's also the cyclical nature of gentrification . Stephanos boasts to two tourist that wander into his store that it used to be one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the District, full of senators, congressmen, relatives of presidents; you had to have connections, money, and power to live there. Since Stephanos has lived in Logan's Circle, it had always been run-down, but declined even further as the years passed by. Soon enough, a white woman moves into and restores the deteriorating Victorian mansion next door and developers begin evicting the long-time residents. Finally, there's the circadian rhythm of Stephanos's life, where most days resemble the day before - opening the store, watching the typical flow of customers, sitting with his two friends after closing each night.
The story is sad. Not so much in the horrifically tragic way, though the flashbacks to Ethiopia are heartbreaking. It's more that there is a quiet melancholy exuding from each of the characters. The novel is character-driven, not plot-driven, and each one's despondent state provides insight into the impacts of gentrification and about what it is like to be an immigrant.
December 18, 2010
It came down to two things for me: The narrator and the location. The narrator's voice is haunting and sweet. Tinged with sadness and hope, that at times made it difficult to bear. But it propelled me on, hoping to see this kind and pitiful man receive some happiness, some lasting beauty in his life. The other characters are mere set pieces (and perhaps I should deduct a star for that?) to generate reaction from our narrator, to give us some peek into his psyche. But those peeks are so well rewarded that I don't mind the lack of depth afforded to the other players in this tale. And given that it's a first person narrative, that's not such a big flaw. We can only know the other characters as well as our narrator knows them himself and with as much information as he chooses to reveal. The absence of deep and personal relationships is at the heart of Sepha's story, and it serves to illuminate his loneliness and isolation. He's no martyred saint. He's had his share of tragedy and ill shakes in life, but undeniably he's contributed to his present condition through his own inactions and turbidity. But that only shows us his very real soul and his fragile humanity. Mengestu has done a beautiful job showing us this person.
As for the location. Well, conflicted feelings. This is describing gentrifying that began some 20 years ago, but has hit a frenzy peak now. The restaurants, theaters, chain organic grocery stores. And only 4 miles down the road from me! I like all those things. But I don't like that people got pushed out to bring it. Or is it that I don't like that I can't afford to live there, either? Is it only a problem because it's gentrified past me? Would I have shopped in Sepha's store? Would I have complained of prostitutes in the park? Gaah. Uncomfortable questions. While this particular incarnation is local to me, and therefore seems especially close, I imagine these issues can be extrapolated to any urban area and speak to many readers. Of course, I can't falsely distance myself to test that theory.
I look forward to the next efforts of Mr. Mengestu.
As for the location. Well, conflicted feelings. This is describing gentrifying that began some 20 years ago, but has hit a frenzy peak now. The restaurants, theaters, chain organic grocery stores. And only 4 miles down the road from me! I like all those things. But I don't like that people got pushed out to bring it. Or is it that I don't like that I can't afford to live there, either? Is it only a problem because it's gentrified past me? Would I have shopped in Sepha's store? Would I have complained of prostitutes in the park? Gaah. Uncomfortable questions. While this particular incarnation is local to me, and therefore seems especially close, I imagine these issues can be extrapolated to any urban area and speak to many readers. Of course, I can't falsely distance myself to test that theory.
I look forward to the next efforts of Mr. Mengestu.
October 26, 2020
Rating: 4.25* of five
How wonderful it is to find a first novel that feels so accomplished and tells such an engrossing story. I can't imagine that real, enjoyable talent is becoming rarer in a world that contains such eloquent proofs of its health.
Mengestu tells the story of three friends, African immigrants all, who meet in Washington DC, for so long the home territory of nativist sentiment in our republic of exclusion. I don't think a recap of the plot will help anyone decide whether or not to buy the book, because its outlines are simple: Men seeking material success in the motherland of same are thwarted and, through effort and good fortune, succeed at things they weren't looking to succeed at...temporarily.
A fire plays a major role in completing the story, and since I am currently seeing a fireman, that caught my eye. It's not, to my surprise, used as a pat plot device, but imbued with a real sense of the inevitability of sadness, loss, and change in the entwined lives of three lovely characters. Naomi, to name but one, is a heartbreakingly well observed actor in the piece despite her tender years, and Judith her mother is such a deftly drawn, conflicted, real person that I was tempted to look her up in the phone book; as for Sepha, he can come stay with me until things get better. That's the kind of connection Mengestu's characters call forth in me, and I hope in you too.
Bravo, Dinaw Mengestu. Thanks. Write...well, publish...more soon, please. Recommended for all readers of fiction.
How wonderful it is to find a first novel that feels so accomplished and tells such an engrossing story. I can't imagine that real, enjoyable talent is becoming rarer in a world that contains such eloquent proofs of its health.
Mengestu tells the story of three friends, African immigrants all, who meet in Washington DC, for so long the home territory of nativist sentiment in our republic of exclusion. I don't think a recap of the plot will help anyone decide whether or not to buy the book, because its outlines are simple: Men seeking material success in the motherland of same are thwarted and, through effort and good fortune, succeed at things they weren't looking to succeed at...temporarily.
A fire plays a major role in completing the story, and since I am currently seeing a fireman, that caught my eye. It's not, to my surprise, used as a pat plot device, but imbued with a real sense of the inevitability of sadness, loss, and change in the entwined lives of three lovely characters. Naomi, to name but one, is a heartbreakingly well observed actor in the piece despite her tender years, and Judith her mother is such a deftly drawn, conflicted, real person that I was tempted to look her up in the phone book; as for Sepha, he can come stay with me until things get better. That's the kind of connection Mengestu's characters call forth in me, and I hope in you too.
Bravo, Dinaw Mengestu. Thanks. Write...well, publish...more soon, please. Recommended for all readers of fiction.
June 12, 2012
This is an excellent book. On its surface it's about the immigrant experience, but it delves deeper and achieves a universality which is much more profound. Anyone who has ever experienced the dislocation of not belonging to a time or place can relate to this story. Despite socio-economic differences, these characters share a struggle to be part of something greater than themselves. This individual striving to belong assumes socio-political implications as the plot enfolds. Social unrest in a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, DC mirrors the horrors of revolutionary Africa. And for those who are straddling between those worlds, nothing can erase their sense of alienation. That their stories play out in the US capital, makes this an especially gripping tale of life in America in its waning days of dominance in the world.
September 8, 2009
Seventeen years ago Sepha Stephanos fled Ethiopia during the revolution which called Sepha's father. Now Sepha owns and works in a convenience store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. In seventeen years (seventeen!) Sepha has made friends with a couple other immigrants from his home country, but that is the extent of his relationships in the entire time. As the neighborhood falls apart around him, and his store continues to fail (it doesn't help that he's rather lackadaisical about working anyhow...), racial incidents begin to occur. In the midst of the turmoil Sepha meets a white woman, Judith, and her biracial daughter, Naomi, as they move in. There is a feeling of hope and peace with their arrival since, you know, it takes a white person to fix the bad neighborhoods. (Yeah, that is called sarcasm.)
I really wanted to like this book more. Maybe it would have made more sense told from a different perspective. The story itself was written well and from a first person perspective, which makes me argue if Sepha was such a good narrator, perhaps he should have been doing something else with his time other than working in a failing convenience store. Just an idea. His lack of concern for anything in his life, his laziness, drove me nuts and makes me question why he left Ethiopia in the first place - obsensibly it was to make a better life for himself, and sure, I suppose not having a gun to your head regularly makes a better life, but maybe I'm missing something here.
Again, Mengestu wrote beautifully but the story itself was hard to swallow. Not bad for a first novel. Sure beats my own first novel. (Yeah, that's right, I don't have one.)
I really wanted to like this book more. Maybe it would have made more sense told from a different perspective. The story itself was written well and from a first person perspective, which makes me argue if Sepha was such a good narrator, perhaps he should have been doing something else with his time other than working in a failing convenience store. Just an idea. His lack of concern for anything in his life, his laziness, drove me nuts and makes me question why he left Ethiopia in the first place - obsensibly it was to make a better life for himself, and sure, I suppose not having a gun to your head regularly makes a better life, but maybe I'm missing something here.
Again, Mengestu wrote beautifully but the story itself was hard to swallow. Not bad for a first novel. Sure beats my own first novel. (Yeah, that's right, I don't have one.)
January 31, 2012
Truly a beautiful book! It's hard for me to imagine that this young, driven author was able to describe so well the aimlessness, the lack of drive and energy of Sepha. The novel is about Ethiopian immigrants, but it is really about anyone who is detatched and lost.
The setting is D. C., but it is really about any neighborhood which is in decline. The residents hate that the Circle is so poor and ugly and hate that its gentrification will dislocate them.
Sepha easily falls in love with ten year old Naomi, and her mother, Judith. Is it them that he loves or is he missing his family, which he has abandoned. He reveres his uncle, yet contemplates stealing the old man's savings.
A turning point for Sepha is Judith's off hand comment,"It looks like you've gone and picked the wrong family." He can't get past this. He can't stay on course to make this family or any family, his own.
Of course Sepha has an excuse. He had to flee a bloody, useless revolution. Sepha made many choices by not choosing, not opening his store early, not stocking it, not cleaning it. Luckily for us, although Mengestu also fled from Ethiopia during the Red Terror, he has managed to write a novel about isolated immigrants and isolated people who are easily recognized today and sorrowfully tomorrow.
The setting is D. C., but it is really about any neighborhood which is in decline. The residents hate that the Circle is so poor and ugly and hate that its gentrification will dislocate them.
Sepha easily falls in love with ten year old Naomi, and her mother, Judith. Is it them that he loves or is he missing his family, which he has abandoned. He reveres his uncle, yet contemplates stealing the old man's savings.
A turning point for Sepha is Judith's off hand comment,"It looks like you've gone and picked the wrong family." He can't get past this. He can't stay on course to make this family or any family, his own.
Of course Sepha has an excuse. He had to flee a bloody, useless revolution. Sepha made many choices by not choosing, not opening his store early, not stocking it, not cleaning it. Luckily for us, although Mengestu also fled from Ethiopia during the Red Terror, he has managed to write a novel about isolated immigrants and isolated people who are easily recognized today and sorrowfully tomorrow.
March 3, 2020
This book has a simplicity that amazed me. I breezed through it and although it is rather sad and its melancholy permeates every single paragraph, I could not help but feel somehow liberated while reading it. It mainly conveys the main character’s (an immigrant from Ethiopia) feelings of loneliness and displacement. You however don’t have to be an immigrant to be able to relate to it. Anyone who has ever experienced the feeling of not belonging to a time or place can relate to this story.
''If you miss it so much,'' he yelled at him once, ''why don’t you go back? Then you don’t have to say every day, ''This is like Africa, that is like Africa.'' You can’t go back, though, you would rather miss it comfortably from here instead of hating it every day from there.''
November 26, 2019
I feel like I wasted my time reading this and believe me I really wanted to like this one too.
And indeed I did like a lot of it but the ending..WHAT THE FUCK??
And indeed I did like a lot of it but the ending..WHAT THE FUCK??
June 7, 2019
Beautifully written story of an ethiopian immigrant in DC. For me it perfectly captured the alienness of belonging to two cultures and therefore belonging to none. Wished the ending offered some closure.
August 24, 2014
This novel, the first by Dinaw Mengestu, is set in Washington, DC, at the beginning of the 2000’s. It about African immigrants, one in particular, Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian refugee, and the changing city. Sepha runs a small corner grocery store, but after 17 years in the United States, he still hasn’t found his way. He fled his country at the age of 19 after his father was taken away from his home, and killed. His only family member in America, an “uncle� left behind a comfortable life in Ethiopia, and works endless hours as a taxi driver. Ethiopian immigrants, most of who were refugees of military coups, form a large community in the Washington DC area. They seem to be ubiquitous in the taxi business, and as employees in parking garages (I am not sure why). Sepha and his friends, Kenneth from Kenya and Joseph from Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, meet working at a hotel, and their friendship revolves around their common exile, political turmoil at home, and their “Africanness�. Sepha, like his friends, never finds “success� in his new country. The crux of this is Sepha’s feeling summarized in his observation “How was I supposed to live in America, when I had never really left Ethiopia?�
Sepha lives in Logan Circle, a Washington DC neighborhood only a little over a mile from the White House. Until the early 2000’s, it was a neighborhood plagued by drugs and prostitution. At the same time, there were many African American residents who had lived there for decades. As the novel opens, a four-story mansion next to Sepha’s apartment, is being renovated. He hears the construction workers commenting on the lavish details such as 4 bathrooms for 2 people, and bookcases with sliding doors. The new resident turns out to be an university professor, a white American woman named Judith, and her 11-year-old daughter Naomi, a product of her broken marriage with an economist from Mauritania. Sepha becomes close to Naomi, who visits him most days in his market, and is confused about Judith, who seems to want to be close, but is always giving mixed signals.
Sepha has never invested the time and energy in his market to make it a success. He struggles with overdue bills, and his market refrigerator is full of expired milk and eggs. Encouraged by his friend Kenneth, he tries different schemes to improve his business, but they come to nought. Sepha struggles with loneliness, and a lack of motivation. He seems rootless in America. At the same time, his neighborhood is changing, and this novel is also a story of gentrification and its impact on residents. Evictions begin, and the efforts to fight the wave of development and incoming well-off newcomers are limited.
This is an exceptional first novel, and one that tells multiple stories. The story is well-crafted and occasionally the prose is luminous. It describes a Washington D.C. which is seldom portrayed. Another book that accomplishes this is Edward P. Jones 1992 collection which was nominated for the National Book Award. The title “The beautiful things that heaven bears� is a passage from the last few lines of Dante’s Inferno, just as Dante is preparing to leave Hell. The rest of the phase is“where we came forth and once more saw the stars." For his friend Joseph, this phrase represents the unobtained dreams of Africa, always on the verge of new beginnings which never seem to come to fruition.
Sepha lives in Logan Circle, a Washington DC neighborhood only a little over a mile from the White House. Until the early 2000’s, it was a neighborhood plagued by drugs and prostitution. At the same time, there were many African American residents who had lived there for decades. As the novel opens, a four-story mansion next to Sepha’s apartment, is being renovated. He hears the construction workers commenting on the lavish details such as 4 bathrooms for 2 people, and bookcases with sliding doors. The new resident turns out to be an university professor, a white American woman named Judith, and her 11-year-old daughter Naomi, a product of her broken marriage with an economist from Mauritania. Sepha becomes close to Naomi, who visits him most days in his market, and is confused about Judith, who seems to want to be close, but is always giving mixed signals.
Sepha has never invested the time and energy in his market to make it a success. He struggles with overdue bills, and his market refrigerator is full of expired milk and eggs. Encouraged by his friend Kenneth, he tries different schemes to improve his business, but they come to nought. Sepha struggles with loneliness, and a lack of motivation. He seems rootless in America. At the same time, his neighborhood is changing, and this novel is also a story of gentrification and its impact on residents. Evictions begin, and the efforts to fight the wave of development and incoming well-off newcomers are limited.
This is an exceptional first novel, and one that tells multiple stories. The story is well-crafted and occasionally the prose is luminous. It describes a Washington D.C. which is seldom portrayed. Another book that accomplishes this is Edward P. Jones 1992 collection which was nominated for the National Book Award. The title “The beautiful things that heaven bears� is a passage from the last few lines of Dante’s Inferno, just as Dante is preparing to leave Hell. The rest of the phase is“where we came forth and once more saw the stars." For his friend Joseph, this phrase represents the unobtained dreams of Africa, always on the verge of new beginnings which never seem to come to fruition.
March 22, 2008
Sadly, this book never really took off for me. I liked the subject (it's about an Ethiopian immigrant living in a gentrifying neighborhood in DC), but I didn't really get into the characters so emotionally the story fell flat.
Half of the story is told in flashbacks telling about the narrator's burgeoning romance with a wealthy white woman who moves into his poor neighborhood, and the other half deals with the fall-out from that relationship. I didn't feel like the balance between these two stories worked well (the flashback stuff was much more compelling than watching the narrator stumble despondently around DC).
Ultimately the book seemed confused about what it was trying to say. There are some very important and pertinent ideas in this book, but they come out as something of a muddle. Additionally, the author has a sort of obnoxious habit making his point by quoting lengthy passages from Emerson and de Tocqueville. I understand what he is trying to do (tie his story in with the story of America) and I don't mind that he's doing it per se. It's that the rest of the story is so flimsy that it comes off as heavy-handed -- "See, THIS is what I'm trying to say!"
Seattle chose this book as their Seattle Reads selection this year, so lots of people are reading it and there are going to be a number of community discussions about it (some of which I plan on going to). I think this is great: again, the issues it brings up are very important, and the book humanizes the experience of those of "the other side" of gentrification well. I just wish it had been better...
Half of the story is told in flashbacks telling about the narrator's burgeoning romance with a wealthy white woman who moves into his poor neighborhood, and the other half deals with the fall-out from that relationship. I didn't feel like the balance between these two stories worked well (the flashback stuff was much more compelling than watching the narrator stumble despondently around DC).
Ultimately the book seemed confused about what it was trying to say. There are some very important and pertinent ideas in this book, but they come out as something of a muddle. Additionally, the author has a sort of obnoxious habit making his point by quoting lengthy passages from Emerson and de Tocqueville. I understand what he is trying to do (tie his story in with the story of America) and I don't mind that he's doing it per se. It's that the rest of the story is so flimsy that it comes off as heavy-handed -- "See, THIS is what I'm trying to say!"
Seattle chose this book as their Seattle Reads selection this year, so lots of people are reading it and there are going to be a number of community discussions about it (some of which I plan on going to). I think this is great: again, the issues it brings up are very important, and the book humanizes the experience of those of "the other side" of gentrification well. I just wish it had been better...
August 15, 2015
The best things about this book are the title, which comes from some lines in Dante's Inferno and the writing--Mengestu uses language beautifully. I even liked the characters at first. It just got so redundant and boring to read about the endless cycle of resignation and defeatism that the main character couldn't break out of. He was so pathetic and irritating.
Sepha Stephanos fled from a bloody revolution in Ethiopia after watching his father be beaten and taken away. It has been 17 years and he lives in a rough neighborhood in Washington DC where he owns and operates a neighborhood store. He seems to be smart, but it is difficult to tell because he does nothing with his life. It seems that anything of value he starts to acquire, he does his best to lose or alienate, including his store and his relationships. His poor opinion of himself is a constant self-fufilling prophecy.
If this was non-fiction, that would be one thing--I am extremely interested in real life stories and they are what they are; however, this is fiction. The author could have done anything with Sepha's character. Why not have some hope inserted somewhere? Why not have him show some growth in any area? He ended up in worse shape than when he started.
Sepha Stephanos fled from a bloody revolution in Ethiopia after watching his father be beaten and taken away. It has been 17 years and he lives in a rough neighborhood in Washington DC where he owns and operates a neighborhood store. He seems to be smart, but it is difficult to tell because he does nothing with his life. It seems that anything of value he starts to acquire, he does his best to lose or alienate, including his store and his relationships. His poor opinion of himself is a constant self-fufilling prophecy.
If this was non-fiction, that would be one thing--I am extremely interested in real life stories and they are what they are; however, this is fiction. The author could have done anything with Sepha's character. Why not have some hope inserted somewhere? Why not have him show some growth in any area? He ended up in worse shape than when he started.
February 5, 2024
A beautiful, serious book about the Ethiopian immigrant experience. Sepha has fled his homeland only to find himself running a run down grocery store in urban Washington DC. He bides his time with two other immigrants- Kenneth and Joseph and spends his lonely nights with prostitutes from the corner.
Sepha finds himself friends with Judith, a white professor of History with a biracial daughter named Naomi- who purchased a dilapidated mansion which causes racial conflicts among the community. Sepha’s story is one of loneliness, isolation and true sadness, grim but yet hopeful.
Sepha finds himself friends with Judith, a white professor of History with a biracial daughter named Naomi- who purchased a dilapidated mansion which causes racial conflicts among the community. Sepha’s story is one of loneliness, isolation and true sadness, grim but yet hopeful.
February 3, 2022
Lost In Logan Circle
Set in the Logan Circle area of Washington, D.C. in the mid-1990's, Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, "The Beautiful things that Heaven Bears" (2007) tells a quiet story of loneliness and hope in a middle-aged man caught between two countries. Mengestu (b. 1978) left his native Ethiopia in 1980 with his mother and sister to join his father in the United States. The family emigrated as a result of the political unrest and terrorism in Ethiopia at the time that is recounted in the novel. An excerpt from Mengestu's book is included in the Library of America's anthology of American immigrant writing, "Becoming Americans Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing." I read this short, sad book in a reading group at the local Washington, D.C. library devoted to books by by black authors.
Although Mengestu's novel is set against broad themes, such as the terror in Ethiopia and the difficulty of American immigrant life, it is predominantly a personal deeply introspective story told in the words of its primary character, Sepha Stephanos. When the story begins in 1996, Sepha has been the owner of a small grocery story in Logan Circle for ten years. I loved the book for the familiarity it showed with this and other parts of Washington, D.C. that I know well and for its descriptions of Sepha's endless walking around the city. As I do, Sepha also rides and observes his fellow passengers on the city buses and the subway in addition to his constant walking. In the mid-1990s, Logan Circle was in the process of gentrification. But for many years before then, the area was run down and deteriorating, the home to many prostitutes and drug dealers. The Circle, named after the Union Civil War hero John Logan was decayed and in disrepair. When Sepha established his store and moved to the Logan Circle area, the community was in its longstanding decay. When most of the story takes place, it had largely changed its character and become trendy and upper middle class.
Sepha has only two close friends in the United States, Joseph and Kenneth. He has known them for the entire 17 years of his American life when all three had menial jobs at a luxury hotel. Joseph and Kenneth are immigrants from different African countries, and the three friends enjoy playing a game in which they challenge one another to identify the many coups, revolutions, and atrocities in contemporary Africa. Kenneth has become an engineer with a good income but a feeling of isolation. Joseph, with dreams of becoming an intellectual and a poet, works as a waiter in an expensive restaurant and drinks heavily. The only friendships the three have are with each other, as they talk, drink, and watch women at D.C.'s adult bars. Sepha stayed with his uncle from Ethiopia for a number of years before moving to Logan Circle but sees little of him. When the story opens, Sepha is getting to know gentrified newcomers to Logan Circle, Judith, an academic separated from her husband who studies American intellectual history and her 11- year old biracial daughter Naomi. The young girl and Sepha become friends for a time as the precocious Naomi visits the story and has Sepha read to her from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov." And Judith, lonely in her own way, and Sepha try to become close. The book opens at a time near the chronological end of the story and the chapters move back and forth to discuss Sepha's life in Ethiopia, has early years in America and on Logan Circle, and his short relationship with Judith and Naomi.
The book shows Sepha alone, struggling with his store, walking the streets of Washington, D.C. sitting at the benches around Logan Circle, and becoming familiar over the years with many of the prostitutes who once frequented the area and patronized his store. He reads a great deal, learns about General Logan, and marvels about the ignorance of Americans about with their history and their heroes. Judith as well studies American's lack of interest in their past, and she encourages Sepha to read Ralph Waldo Emerson and Tocqueville. Isolated in their own ways, Sepha and Judith prove unable to connect. The strongest relationship in the book is between Sepha and young Naomi.
The book shows Sepha's inner life and the lives of his two friends, Joseph and Kenneth as they are caught between the lands of their birth and an America in which they feel alone. Sepha has for years been haunted by his father, who is killed in the Ethiopian terror just before he flees at the age of 16 to America. His mother gave Sepha the family treasures to make good his escape. Sepha, lost in the United States, communicates with his aged mother and young brother only sporadically.
The novel has a songlike, philosophical tone of loneliness interspersed with hope and the search for love. It is the story of an immigrant, but it describes feelings that many people will recognize. The book has a strong sense of place for Washington, D.C. as it is now and as it was not long ago. I was pleased to get to know this first promising novel by Dinaw Mengestu.
Robin Friedman
Set in the Logan Circle area of Washington, D.C. in the mid-1990's, Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, "The Beautiful things that Heaven Bears" (2007) tells a quiet story of loneliness and hope in a middle-aged man caught between two countries. Mengestu (b. 1978) left his native Ethiopia in 1980 with his mother and sister to join his father in the United States. The family emigrated as a result of the political unrest and terrorism in Ethiopia at the time that is recounted in the novel. An excerpt from Mengestu's book is included in the Library of America's anthology of American immigrant writing, "Becoming Americans Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing." I read this short, sad book in a reading group at the local Washington, D.C. library devoted to books by by black authors.
Although Mengestu's novel is set against broad themes, such as the terror in Ethiopia and the difficulty of American immigrant life, it is predominantly a personal deeply introspective story told in the words of its primary character, Sepha Stephanos. When the story begins in 1996, Sepha has been the owner of a small grocery story in Logan Circle for ten years. I loved the book for the familiarity it showed with this and other parts of Washington, D.C. that I know well and for its descriptions of Sepha's endless walking around the city. As I do, Sepha also rides and observes his fellow passengers on the city buses and the subway in addition to his constant walking. In the mid-1990s, Logan Circle was in the process of gentrification. But for many years before then, the area was run down and deteriorating, the home to many prostitutes and drug dealers. The Circle, named after the Union Civil War hero John Logan was decayed and in disrepair. When Sepha established his store and moved to the Logan Circle area, the community was in its longstanding decay. When most of the story takes place, it had largely changed its character and become trendy and upper middle class.
Sepha has only two close friends in the United States, Joseph and Kenneth. He has known them for the entire 17 years of his American life when all three had menial jobs at a luxury hotel. Joseph and Kenneth are immigrants from different African countries, and the three friends enjoy playing a game in which they challenge one another to identify the many coups, revolutions, and atrocities in contemporary Africa. Kenneth has become an engineer with a good income but a feeling of isolation. Joseph, with dreams of becoming an intellectual and a poet, works as a waiter in an expensive restaurant and drinks heavily. The only friendships the three have are with each other, as they talk, drink, and watch women at D.C.'s adult bars. Sepha stayed with his uncle from Ethiopia for a number of years before moving to Logan Circle but sees little of him. When the story opens, Sepha is getting to know gentrified newcomers to Logan Circle, Judith, an academic separated from her husband who studies American intellectual history and her 11- year old biracial daughter Naomi. The young girl and Sepha become friends for a time as the precocious Naomi visits the story and has Sepha read to her from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov." And Judith, lonely in her own way, and Sepha try to become close. The book opens at a time near the chronological end of the story and the chapters move back and forth to discuss Sepha's life in Ethiopia, has early years in America and on Logan Circle, and his short relationship with Judith and Naomi.
The book shows Sepha alone, struggling with his store, walking the streets of Washington, D.C. sitting at the benches around Logan Circle, and becoming familiar over the years with many of the prostitutes who once frequented the area and patronized his store. He reads a great deal, learns about General Logan, and marvels about the ignorance of Americans about with their history and their heroes. Judith as well studies American's lack of interest in their past, and she encourages Sepha to read Ralph Waldo Emerson and Tocqueville. Isolated in their own ways, Sepha and Judith prove unable to connect. The strongest relationship in the book is between Sepha and young Naomi.
The book shows Sepha's inner life and the lives of his two friends, Joseph and Kenneth as they are caught between the lands of their birth and an America in which they feel alone. Sepha has for years been haunted by his father, who is killed in the Ethiopian terror just before he flees at the age of 16 to America. His mother gave Sepha the family treasures to make good his escape. Sepha, lost in the United States, communicates with his aged mother and young brother only sporadically.
The novel has a songlike, philosophical tone of loneliness interspersed with hope and the search for love. It is the story of an immigrant, but it describes feelings that many people will recognize. The book has a strong sense of place for Washington, D.C. as it is now and as it was not long ago. I was pleased to get to know this first promising novel by Dinaw Mengestu.
Robin Friedman
June 21, 2007
Full disclosure: I know the author of this book. It is very difficult to judge a book by an author you know. Unless that author is me, in which case it is easy: prognosis - brilliant!
This is the story of an immigrant from Ethiopia and his relationship with his friends, neighbors, and in particular, a small girl in the neighborhood. Not a lot happens, but we learn a lot about the characters and the difficulties facing immigrants in America. The book is getting raves from reviewers, and deservedly so. The only reason I would not give it a higher rating is that I tend to read a different type of book. This is a highly introspective story of a pretty sad person who is surrounded by sad events. My tastes tend toward the ridiculous, plot-heavy, and absurd, so I am probably not the best audience to be reviewing this book.
Dinaw writes like a dream, for sure. I wish I had one ounce of his poetic abilities. He has written a beautiful book full of memorable characters, but being the type of person who likes to see shit blowing up, I am afraid I cannot give it the review it deserves.
This is the story of an immigrant from Ethiopia and his relationship with his friends, neighbors, and in particular, a small girl in the neighborhood. Not a lot happens, but we learn a lot about the characters and the difficulties facing immigrants in America. The book is getting raves from reviewers, and deservedly so. The only reason I would not give it a higher rating is that I tend to read a different type of book. This is a highly introspective story of a pretty sad person who is surrounded by sad events. My tastes tend toward the ridiculous, plot-heavy, and absurd, so I am probably not the best audience to be reviewing this book.
Dinaw writes like a dream, for sure. I wish I had one ounce of his poetic abilities. He has written a beautiful book full of memorable characters, but being the type of person who likes to see shit blowing up, I am afraid I cannot give it the review it deserves.
May 12, 2016
I won't be assigning this book to my students, because its depressing, and not a lot happens. Melancholy Ethiopian exile approaching middle-age runs shabby corner store in DC, makes only two friends over the course of seventeen years, botches romance with divorced professor lady, and remains traumatized by the death of his father at the hands of the Mengistu regime. See what I mean? And yet, I absolutely loved it. Its wryly funny, totally heartbreaking, and wonderful on being a reluctant immigrant, and on the city of Washington itself-which I think is a melancholy place in its own right. He's a fantastic writer.
October 3, 2014
I read half of this beautifully written book and was done with it. In a word, nothing happens. A borderline-depressed Ethiopian national lives in Washington DC and endlessly recounts his apathy and general listlessness with life. And when I say nothing happens I am not using hyperbole...nothing happens! The lovely prose was simply not enough to keep me engage in this endless nothingness.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears - Nevisande : Dinaw Mengestu - ISBN : 1594489408 - ISBN13 : 9781594489402 - Dar 240 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2007
November 17, 2012
Gentle in tone and intimate in its focus, this is exactly the sort of book I was hoping it would be when I suggested it as a possibility for my book group. Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian immigrant to the United States, has just two friends, Kenneth (from Kenya) and Joseph (from Congo/Zaire), and spends his days alone reading in his rundown convenience store in a poor neighborhood in Washington, DC. The neighborhood is beginning to be gentrified, and Sepha is befriended by a white incomer, Judith (a professor of American history), and Judith's eleven-year-old biracial daughter Naomi. Sepha's story--the reason for his lonely solitude--unfolds through after-work conversations he has with Kenneth and Joseph, through his reading sessions with Naomi (they're working on The Brothers Karamazov, which Naomi picked at random for its heft), and somewhat awkward meals with Judith. All the characters are intensely likable and sympathetic, including those present only in Sepha's recollection, such as his gentle, storytelling father, who was a lawyer, or Sepha's uncle, who abandoned the magnificent house he had built when he realized revolution was coming, and who has sent letters to every US president, pleading on Ethiopia's behalf, since his arrival in the United States in the 1970s.
I couldn't stop marking passages down for their beauty and the way they moved me. At one point, Sepha leaves his shop in the middle of the day to follow a happy-seeming tourist couple who had dropped in to buy something. He looks back at his shop:
Ahh, it just hit me in the chest, not in a gratuitous way, but in a true way. I--who am not an immigrant, who did not witness horrors visited on a loved one or lose family in a revolution, who do not live in a poor urban neighborhood, who share with him only a melancholic nature--identified with him viscerally and completely: it's down to the power of Mengestu's writing.
A matter-of fact sadness is at the core of the book, and yet it's never lugubrious or soppy or overwrought; there's plenty of understated humor: "It's nice to think there's a purpose, or even a real decision that turns everything [in one's life] in one direction," remarks Judith, "but that's not always true, is it? We just fall into our lives. How did you get to own a grocery store?" To which Sepha replies, "Some people are just lucky."
Sepha's time reading with Naomi is wonderful. About it, he thinks,
Isn't that the secret to the sadness and joy of life, right there? It hit me with the force of its truth.
When Sepha reads, he recalls his father's stories:
Yes, we meet the father this way, casually, through affectionate memories--which makes the crucial scene in the center of the book all the more devastating. Devastating, but not gratuitous, not unbearable.
Let me leave you with one more quote, from when the number of evictions in Sepha's neighborhood has started to rise. He walks by one of the homes:
Truth.
I loved the book. I loved the characters. I loved the insight. It won't be for everyone: it's very small scale, and it's melancholic--a little too much so for one member of my book group, but absolutely perfect for me. And as I say, there's humor here, and beauty, and love, and the pain is only the natural pain that comes from waking up and finding yourself doomed to be human.
I couldn't stop marking passages down for their beauty and the way they moved me. At one point, Sepha leaves his shop in the middle of the day to follow a happy-seeming tourist couple who had dropped in to buy something. He looks back at his shop:
I can see it clearly from here, everything from the sagging right gutter to the streaks of blue paint along the side to the metal bars over the windows shining in the sun. How is it that in all these years, I've never seen my store look quite like this? I can imagine it wanting to be spared the burden of having to survive another year. The door is unlocked. The sign is flipped to "Open" and the cash register, with its contents totalling $3.28, is ajar. I wonder if this is what it feels like to walk out on your wife and children. If this is what it feels like to leave a car on the side of the highway and never come back for it. What is the proper equation, the perfect simile or metaphor? I'm an immigrant. I should know this. I've done it before.
Ahh, it just hit me in the chest, not in a gratuitous way, but in a true way. I--who am not an immigrant, who did not witness horrors visited on a loved one or lose family in a revolution, who do not live in a poor urban neighborhood, who share with him only a melancholic nature--identified with him viscerally and completely: it's down to the power of Mengestu's writing.
A matter-of fact sadness is at the core of the book, and yet it's never lugubrious or soppy or overwrought; there's plenty of understated humor: "It's nice to think there's a purpose, or even a real decision that turns everything [in one's life] in one direction," remarks Judith, "but that's not always true, is it? We just fall into our lives. How did you get to own a grocery store?" To which Sepha replies, "Some people are just lucky."
Sepha's time reading with Naomi is wonderful. About it, he thinks,
Every time I looked at her I became aware of just how seemingly perfect this time was. I thought about how years from now I would remember this with a crushing, heartbreaking nostalgia, because of course I knew even then that I would eventually find myself standing here alone. And just as that knowledge would threaten to destroy the scene, Naomi would do something small, like turn the page to early or shift in her chair, and I would be happy once again.
Isn't that the secret to the sadness and joy of life, right there? It hit me with the force of its truth.
When Sepha reads, he recalls his father's stories:
The stories he invented himself he told with particular delight. They all began the same way, with the same lighthearted tone, with a small wave of the hand, as if the world were being brushed to the side, which I suppose for him it actually was.
"Ah, that reminds me, Did I tell you about--
The shepherd who beat his sheep too hard
The farmer who was too lazy to plow his fields
The hyena who laughed himself to death
The lion who tried to steal the monkey's dinner
The monkey who tried to steal the lion's dinner?"
Yes, we meet the father this way, casually, through affectionate memories--which makes the crucial scene in the center of the book all the more devastating. Devastating, but not gratuitous, not unbearable.
Let me leave you with one more quote, from when the number of evictions in Sepha's neighborhood has started to rise. He walks by one of the homes:
It didn't matter where you lived, or where you came from, or how far you had traveled, somewhere near you someone was on the run.
Truth.
I loved the book. I loved the characters. I loved the insight. It won't be for everyone: it's very small scale, and it's melancholic--a little too much so for one member of my book group, but absolutely perfect for me. And as I say, there's humor here, and beauty, and love, and the pain is only the natural pain that comes from waking up and finding yourself doomed to be human.
April 25, 2022
not a horrible book but an interesting story and kept me engaged... i guess?
June 9, 2020
Named for a Dante quote from Inferno, about being led out of hell and shown new possibilities.
Stephanos, the protagonist of the novel, was “led� out of Ethiopia after his father was killed by revolutionaries. He lives with his uncle in Silver Spring (represent!) for a time, attends school and gets a menial job, until he chases after the more substantial American dream of being “his own man,� aka owning his own business in a rundown neighborhood in Washington, DC.
That’s all backstory to this novel that takes place with alternating chapters between “winter� and “spring� of some contemporary year (presumably close to 2007, when the novel was published.) Stephanos—and I suppose Mengestu—aren’t interested in the specifics of American politics, save for gentrification.
In the “winter� storyline, a wealthy white woman, Judith, and her biracial daughter, Naomi, move into the decrepit mansion next door to Stephanos’s apartment, and they spruce it up. Stephanos lives in Logan Circle, so named for a war general whose statue sits in the middle of the neighborhood. Once a stately place, Stephanos moved in during it’s recession and he loved it for that: “I loved the circle and what it had become: proof that wealth and power are not immutable, and America was not so great after all. The neighborhood, and by extension the city, had fallen, and every night I could see and hear that outside of my living-room window.�
Perhaps an even more prescient sentiment, given that his father and uncle, once powerful men in Ethiopia, were laid low by the Red Terror. Either way, Stephanos—or Mengestu—it’s not that this is an autobiographical novel, but the voice is so personal—describes his neighborhood, from the petty prostitution, crime and drugs, to the lonely old-timers just trying to get by—with reverence. He barely describes the gentrification at all, save for Judith’s arrival.
I think Stephanos’s relationship with Judith and Naomi was the weakest part of the book. I fell for it in part—all of their talk of literature and yearning for human connection. As a Jew, I almost thought of Judith and Naomi as the biblical Ruth and Naomi, but it’s a crazy fit, at best. Except perhaps for the idea of outsiders. Either way, I ultimately didn’t feel like there was enough of a real connection to hold onto these women, though perhaps that was the point, from Stephanos’s perspective. It was a lacking experience for both of us.
Besides, I could get that sense of longing for the unattainable just as well in the “spring� story, when the shit hits the fan for Stephanos, to put it crudely and vaguely. He walks away from his store at one point, following some tourists into Dupont, and spends most of the rest of his day either imagining what happened to his store in his absence or imagining what his store might have been.
I wrote a line in one of my own short stories, once, about chasing this impulse: “Disappearing doesn’t have much of a shape. Just walking out of frame in the dark, past the blocks around your condo.� But for Stephanos this is more than ennui, because he’s done it before. “We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what’s waiting for us now that we’ve returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place to the next. We try to do the best we can.�
I’m particularly touched by Stephanos’s relationships with his two African immigrant friends, Joseph from the Congo (or Zaire) and Kenneth from Kenya, and how they escape from the dreariness of their current lives by remembering all the coups on their birth continent. I’m also in a biased state myself, longing for DC during the coronavirus (squinting at the Capitol dome from my balcony...anywho). But I can appreciate a timeless appeal to this novel, as well—the longing, the literature, the loss—which makes it both an immigrant story and a universal one. Thank you, DCPL and #uncensoredDC, for putting this novel on my radar!
Stephanos, the protagonist of the novel, was “led� out of Ethiopia after his father was killed by revolutionaries. He lives with his uncle in Silver Spring (represent!) for a time, attends school and gets a menial job, until he chases after the more substantial American dream of being “his own man,� aka owning his own business in a rundown neighborhood in Washington, DC.
That’s all backstory to this novel that takes place with alternating chapters between “winter� and “spring� of some contemporary year (presumably close to 2007, when the novel was published.) Stephanos—and I suppose Mengestu—aren’t interested in the specifics of American politics, save for gentrification.
In the “winter� storyline, a wealthy white woman, Judith, and her biracial daughter, Naomi, move into the decrepit mansion next door to Stephanos’s apartment, and they spruce it up. Stephanos lives in Logan Circle, so named for a war general whose statue sits in the middle of the neighborhood. Once a stately place, Stephanos moved in during it’s recession and he loved it for that: “I loved the circle and what it had become: proof that wealth and power are not immutable, and America was not so great after all. The neighborhood, and by extension the city, had fallen, and every night I could see and hear that outside of my living-room window.�
Perhaps an even more prescient sentiment, given that his father and uncle, once powerful men in Ethiopia, were laid low by the Red Terror. Either way, Stephanos—or Mengestu—it’s not that this is an autobiographical novel, but the voice is so personal—describes his neighborhood, from the petty prostitution, crime and drugs, to the lonely old-timers just trying to get by—with reverence. He barely describes the gentrification at all, save for Judith’s arrival.
I think Stephanos’s relationship with Judith and Naomi was the weakest part of the book. I fell for it in part—all of their talk of literature and yearning for human connection. As a Jew, I almost thought of Judith and Naomi as the biblical Ruth and Naomi, but it’s a crazy fit, at best. Except perhaps for the idea of outsiders. Either way, I ultimately didn’t feel like there was enough of a real connection to hold onto these women, though perhaps that was the point, from Stephanos’s perspective. It was a lacking experience for both of us.
Besides, I could get that sense of longing for the unattainable just as well in the “spring� story, when the shit hits the fan for Stephanos, to put it crudely and vaguely. He walks away from his store at one point, following some tourists into Dupont, and spends most of the rest of his day either imagining what happened to his store in his absence or imagining what his store might have been.
I wrote a line in one of my own short stories, once, about chasing this impulse: “Disappearing doesn’t have much of a shape. Just walking out of frame in the dark, past the blocks around your condo.� But for Stephanos this is more than ennui, because he’s done it before. “We walk away and try not to turn back, or we stand just outside the gates, terrified to find what’s waiting for us now that we’ve returned. In between, we stumble blindly from one place to the next. We try to do the best we can.�
I’m particularly touched by Stephanos’s relationships with his two African immigrant friends, Joseph from the Congo (or Zaire) and Kenneth from Kenya, and how they escape from the dreariness of their current lives by remembering all the coups on their birth continent. I’m also in a biased state myself, longing for DC during the coronavirus (squinting at the Capitol dome from my balcony...anywho). But I can appreciate a timeless appeal to this novel, as well—the longing, the literature, the loss—which makes it both an immigrant story and a universal one. Thank you, DCPL and #uncensoredDC, for putting this novel on my radar!
May 8, 2017
Много интимна книга, на моменти чак ми беше неудобно, сякаш непознат човек ми споделя безкрайно лични неща за себе си... Откровена, романтично-носталгична, по приятния начин. Насладих й се напълно, като на гоооооляма чаша ароматен чай (или нещо такова).
March 10, 2020
Very sad and melancholic- a somber reminder of what war-caused poverty is doing to the world and its people. Resemblances with Nepal’s civil war and its consequences. Smooth writing, relatable character, an Ethiopian immigrant struggling in the US. Natural progression of events, evokes sympathy. Can get boring in parts.
September 29, 2023
The plot was more a less a man working in his shop, sitting outside his shop, and drinking because of his shop. But I liked it!
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