At first look, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, the newest novel from prolific Australian creator Shankari Chandran, could appear like a lightweight affair: a story a couple of numerous group of aged Australians dwelling in a family-run nursing residence in Sydney.
However past the twee cowl and comfy title, Chandran’s novel has critical heft, spanning a number of timelines and tackling complicated subjects like race, trauma and the structural inequality engendered in so-called multicultural Australia.
The titular Cinnamon Gardens is a nursing residence in Sydney, which was revamped within the 80s by migrant couple Maya and Zakhir after they fled civil battle of their residence of Sri Lanka. As Tamils and lecturers, the couple skilled persecution, torture and intimidation, forcing them to go away. Cinnamon Gardens gives a brand new starting and the couple rework it right into a sanctuary for culturally numerous seniors.
Quick ahead a number of many years to the mid-2000s and Zakhir is lacking, presumed useless. Maya is a resident within the nursing residence she developed which is now run by her daughter Anjali. Cinnamon Gardens, in the meantime, turns into the positioning of a tradition battle when native councillor Gareth – a longtime pal of Anjali – discovers that her mother and father as soon as toppled a statue of Captain Prepare dinner which stood on the nursing residence, in an act of anti-colonial rebel. He accuses Cinnamon Gardens of racism and lodges a grievance with the Human Rights Fee, instigating a nation-wide backlash in opposition to “ungrateful” immigrant communities.
This units off a sequence of escalating occasions that unmasks the brewing discord in western Sydney’s multicultural group, and triggers the trauma of the residents and employees who've escaped persecution of their residence international locations.
The novel is instructed by means of two timelines: the primary within the current day, as Maya and Anjali grapple with the accusations delivered to them, and the second by means of flashbacks to the Sri Lankan civil battle. As every new piece of the puzzle of the household’s previous is uncovered, we get nearer to fixing the thriller of Zakhir’s disappearance.
If it appears like there’s so much to maintain observe of in Chandran’s novel, that’s as a result of there's. There’s household violence; the tragic loss of a kid; torture and displacement; a well-known creator hiding behind a pseudonym; a political battle for native council; extra-marital affairs; and to high all of it off, a horrible and surprising tragedy.
The complexity of the narratives are partly to the e-book’s power: each character will get a real and nuanced backstory, and Chandran is indisputably gifted at creating characters that encourage empathy. Nevertheless it does really feel as if one or two storylines may have been minimize; the complexity undermines the suspense of the novel opener and, by the point its mysteries are solved, you could end up having misplaced observe of what was occurring regardless.
And whereas I like a sprawling, intergenerational epic, the stability doesn’t at all times sit proper in Chai Time; your entire present-day timeline takes place over a brief interval, in distinction with many years within the flashbacks. Chandran possesses an unimaginable capacity to immerse the reader in historic reality and element that makes even essentially the most unimaginable scenes in Sri Lanka really feel actual – however an easier story could have made for a greater e-book.
Chai Time in Cinnamon Gardens is an attractive, if not totally realised, alternative for a wider dialog about Australia, the range of its folks and the gaps in our collective cultural information. It is a e-book that requires focus and full immersion – however it'll reward the reader for that funding.
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is out now by means of Ultimo Press
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