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In return, Sayon wants to give the people he loves the world: a house atop a grand hill in the most affluent area of the city, a home in which they can forever find joy and safety. But after an altercation in which a boy is killed, Sayon finds his loyalties torn and his dream of a better life in peril. His long term aim (as set out in the first chapter) is to buy a Clifton based mansion that his mother first showed him as a child – and his drug dealing and other criminal activities have got him close to that aim with nearly 80% of the price in cash; however just before the novel’s starts (and this is not a spoiler as it is revealed from the second chapter) Sayon kills someone to protect Cuba and is now desperately scrambling to cover this up so as to maintain his dream (and his relationship with Shona) This involves him effectively needing to make a breach with his own family and come under the influence of Shona’s father who, having always resented her relationship with Sayon, now sees Sayon’s salvation as his life project.
An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Hachette UK
His family was the only one older than mine in the city. We knew each other well and demonstrated our respect through patronage. I gave him an extra tenner each visit and dropped a couple of pounds in the charity box I knew he took a cut from. Moses has won the 2023 Hawthornden Prize for Literature, a 2023 Somerset Maugham Award, and the Soho House Breakthrough Writer Award in 2022.
Sayon wrestles with his feelings for his girlfriend Shona, with her preacher father and his insistence on the Christian god, his cousin’s insistence on Allah, and with his best friend and cousin Cuba who he cannot imagine abandoning. There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’ Sayon’s long term girlfriend is Shona, now an up-and-coming music agent/producer she is also the daughter of a pastor – Lyle Jennings. Lyle’s Baptist church is more fundamentalist, and bible based than Errol’s more charismatic church and Shona is much closer to her parents than Sayon (in fact still living at home in a relatively idealistic home set up – note than we only really see Shona through Sayon’s eyes so we realise that her character and set up are idealised by him). Which brings me to my final issue – as with “Who They Was” I think some readers may struggle to sympathise with Sayon’s worldview and the didactic way in which it seems to justify say selling drugs to homeless people as exactly equivalent to a religious group feeding or clothing them, as well as the constant violence and criminal activities which can be justified due to injustices against past generations.
An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Waterstones
Two officers stood beside the tape ready to hurry any gawkers along, but since this wasn’t Clifton, the scene was hardly worth much more than a passing glance. A rare glimpse into the harsh realities of street life and love in luminous prose, rendered with sensitivity and without sentimentalism. An astonishing debut’ Cherie Jones, author of HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE I would be keen to meet both Shona and Sayon again in the future; do you think you might bring them into future novels, considering how you concluded it? Incredible. The story is completely gripping and expertly paced, the characterisation is rounded and complex, especially the different relationships between characters. I'm in awe of how fully the nuances of the relationships come through in such small details that speak large. And the language - oh my - what an impressive range of registers Moses hits with such beauty in the lyrical bits, such music in the dialogue, and such efficiency throughout. Zero fluff. -- Melissa Fu, author of PEACH BLOSSOM SPRINGIt will I think be a book that will divide opinion – many (and particularly mainstream) reviewers will I think simply go for the exciting young voice view; but individual readers I think may struggle with a number of aspects: the narrative style (particularly the speech), the literary techniques, the religious elements and the worldview of the protagonist (of which I struggled with the latter three aspects).
An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Waterstones An Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie | Waterstones
If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us A remarkable debut, bristling with sharp prose and daring originality' Nathan Harris, author of THE SWEETNESS OF WATER
Luminous prose, rendered with sensitivity and without sentimentalism. An astonishing debut’ Cherie Jones, author of HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE I’m currently reading A Dictionary of Symbols. I just finished Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism. What else am I reading? I’m reading the Qur’an. I’m reading Don Quixote as well at the moment, but I mean, I love books, and I just finished Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez, which is insane. Bunny was a funny one, unpredictable like the weather. If there was a child in Ends without a father, we said it was Bunny’s yute. He was to women what Vybz was to Jamaica’s youth – at least that’s what he thought.
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