The back cover of Jacaranda Blues informs the reader that the 84-page novella by Bangladeshi writer Mehreen Ahmed is about “our society’s ultimate failure to resolve class, psychological and emotional issues.” The booklet appeared this year at PublishAmerica and is the author’s first single-author project.
Jacaranda Blues is an easy read and takes places in urban Queensland, Australia, where the author herself is pursuing her academic and writing career. The story revolves around Rhoanda Smith’s life, a woman past her prime, who finds herself caught in a whirlwind of emotions while trying to curb her brother’s antisocial behaviour and, at the same time, to come to terms with her own feelings towards her estranged husband.
Although flat, it is the characters who drive the novella’s action. Starting with the main character, Rhoanda, a dissatisfied woman, we are introduced to a score of flawed people: the thief and drug addict, the bulimic, the unemployed, the rich and famous. Rhoanda’s feelings struggle between unfulfilled love and duty to her three other siblings, but she eventually fails both in rekindling a long lost relationship and in saving her brother.
The title of the novella refers to a fictional South African jazz band: “The band master had said that he was downtrodden at one time and couldn’t see the bright colors of life. Everything looked dull, grey and dreary. That is why he calls it ‘Jacaranda blues’ – in his misery he couldn’t see the beauty of the lavender, all he saw was grey.”
Unfortunately, the book was published without editorial input and quite a few mistakes found their way onto its pages. Also, although the narrative is built on the premises of an interesting storyline, the writer’s frequent descriptions of what people look like, what they are wearing and what they are eating are quite cumbersome.
Jacaranda Blues is available for purchase at $9.95 on the publisher’s website. Also, ‘Ubiquitous Encounter’ by Mehreen Ahmed was published in Mr. Cheng’s Silver Coffeepot – a New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology.
My characters in “Jacaranda Blues” have serious issues. They are emotionally charged which is why they have Freudian slips in their speech such as double negatives and other kinds. These can be easily misinterpreted as error.
If “Jacaranda Blues” is a booklet, then so is “The Old Man and The Sea,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Animal Farm.” I wouldn’t call either of them booklet or even novelette but novella, meaning short novel.
A booklet is “a small book or group of pages.” Your book has 82 pages.
Point noted but bear in mind a booklet is associated more with brochure, pamphlet, stamp book and so on, never with literary work such as the ones mentioned above, no matter how insignificant that work may be in terms of pages.