Brutal and compelling historical fiction set in Trinidad in the 1940s exploring poverty and resentment and centered around a mystery that intertwines the lives of two families.

Highly recommended. A stunningly powerful first novel, and an early contender for the 2023 Booker Prize.

Hosein immediately immerses the reader into the post-plantation landscape of multiracial and multicultural 1940s Trinidad, brimming with (sometimes overly) lush descriptions of flora, fauna, and food. He doesn't overexplain the local culture of Bell Village and its surroundings to outsiders like us, leaving Hindi and Creole vocabulary untranslated, and accepting the religious tension between elite Christians and lower-caste Hindus as a social fact. His prose swivels sharply between dialogue rendered in local patois and high literary narration with archaic and obscure vocabulary (which I found Cormac McCarthy-esque).

This is a story of profound social inequality, pivoting between the family of Hans Saroop, a poor farm worker whose extended family lives in an decrepit plantation barrack with other impoverished outcasts, and the Changoors, a wealthy and childless couple who own a large estate house nearby. The inter-generational trauma of abusive fathers and husbands, rendered as mythically as Greek tragedy, drives the novel's action to a vividly violent conclusion that was terrifyingly nightmarish.

But the underlying plot mechanisms are essentially noirish: the rich landowner Dalton Changoor goes inexplicably missing, and his beautiful wife Marlee (whose origins are suitably suspicious) delays reporting it to the police, even after receiving threatening blackmail notes and Dalton's guard dogs are murdered one by one. She recruits Hans to work as her night watchman, offering him a princely sum of money that will allow his family to buy a plot of land in the village and finally leave the barrack behind. As the sexual tension between them escalates, their best-laid plans implode unpredictably.

I will end my review there, at least until this is published in the US and UK in early February. What made this such a powerful reading experience was that I knew nothing beyond the jacket copy!

I am extremely grateful to Ecco Press and Netgalley for giving me a free ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
In 1940s Trinidad, class, race, and gender are unpacked as various individuals’ lives become unveiled and intertwined.
-
A heavy novel entailing violence, racism, sexism, classism, and religious intolerance. It’s mostly powerful and impactful, but very dense. The setting is so strong, it pulls you in. The story as a whole, though, is somehow both so complicated yet minimal. I think this is mostly due to the heavy usage of description and detail that bogs down the plot. The last 20% though are really good as everything reaches its pinnacle, but it dragged at times to get there.

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The lack of a main character kind of threw me off, and I didn’t find myself totally connecting with any of them. There are just way too many!
One big highlight is the diverse representation of this Caribbean island. And I love how the characters embody different social strata (namely the Changoors being rich and Hans’ family poor) and the ways in which this creates the tension and builds the story.
The young characters (the twins and cousins) are the standouts for me.

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hosein penned a great story with wonderful writing. I enjoy the way he showed the cultural clash and mixture of Indian and Black inhabitants, especially involving Hinduism and Christianity.
The writing style is intricate and elevated, making this much more of a literary work than a palatable, commercial one. It’s VERY dense - almost pretentious at times - and lacks dialogue when needed to keep the narrative flowing. Lots of great wisdom, though.
In sum, the writing is a little TOO good; I can’t help but think I should be reading it in school and not for pleasure.

A family story set in Trinidad in the 1940s. The writing style here wasn't for me, but I think many other people would enjoy it!

This is easily one of the most beautiful and heartrending books I have ever had the pleasure to read.

Hosein's novel is lush with sound and description, a tale that is wrapped in the environment in which it is set. Filled with characters at opposite ends of the social hierarchy, yet who share the same existence of not being able to truly dictate and live the way they want: freely.

Krishna and his family live under the stigma of being Hindu and are seen as less than within the socioeconomic construct of the time and this is captured sharply in the depiction of their living conditions and how they survive.

Marlee lives a in a gilded cage with dreams of charting her own path free of her husband and his edicts. She is selfish and has evolved from the scared young girl who ran to save her life, becoming an archetype of wealth and upward social mobility.

It was difficult not to question the fate of these women who in some fashion or other have been hard done by the men in their lives whether it be through their actions or lack thereof, who must in some way attach themselves to a man in order to be 'taken care of' or be taken away from the barracks. Men even in what is seen as the lowest rung in society still have the freedom to make choices that in some way will elevate them and better their existence.

The presence of foreboding was woven into the narrative from the very beginning and we were reading in a state of constant anticipation for the axe to fall, bringing ill portent to those we had formed a fondness for.

This was brilliantly executed and tore at the heart of the reader.

This was my first book to read by this author but won't be my last! The story and its characters will stick with you long after you finish the story. Highly recommend!

As my first dive into Caribbean literature, “Hungry Ghosts” by Kevin Jared Hosein did not disappoint.
Set in 1940s Trinidad, two families collide after a wealthy man goes missing. Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in a mansion overlooking Bell village in exuberant wealth and luxury. Below them is the Barrack, a ramshackle building for Bell's poorest of the poor laborers. The Saroops––Hans, Shweta, and their son Krishna live in this barrack and dream of escaping the poverty and social class they were born into.

After Dalton goes missing, Hans is employed to watch over the Changoor farm with a generous salary. As time passes and tensions rise, the Changoors and the barracks residents become increasingly entangled until a drastic event changes the community forever.

From the very first page, the characters jumped off the page. Hans, Shweta, Krishna, Marlee, and the rest of the character ensemble were written with such delicate nuance; occasionally, it seemed the characters couldn’t be fictional with the amount of nuance and detail Hosein wove into their lives. Hosein switches back and forth between the ensemble, readily adopting each of their intricacies and thought processes. Diving into each character’s psyche as the drama builds moved the story along and rarely lagged, for all of the protagonists had their own inner conflicts within “Hungry Ghosts.”

A mesh of coming-of-age, family ties, loyalty, poverty, classism, and racism, “Hungry Ghosts” touches on these themes throughout the novel. Hosein’s immersive and wonderfully detailed writing style, combined with the themes, was deeply thought-provoking for readers. There were too many moments where I had to put down “Hungry Ghosts” because of a single passage that made me question my entire existence.

Truthfully, I was a little confused throughout the novel because I was unfamiliar with Trinidadian history and culture. Despite my confusion, “Hungry Ghosts” recounted the post-colonial period with clarity and practically transported readers to Trinidad and Tobago within the first 10 pages.

Atmospheric, haunting, and deeply intimate, “Hungry Ghosts” is a wondrous feat in storytelling and a soon-to-be contemporary classic in Caribbean literature.

Kevin Hosein's tale is a remarkable tale of life between the rich and the poor, how no matter how much money you have, you are never truly sated. Instead, you are always looking for or missing something money cannot buy.

In Hungry Ghosts, we follow the lives of 2 separate families and their situations.

First, we follow Hans Saroop, his wife Shweta, and their son Krishna. At first glance, Hans and Shweta seem like a happy couple, Shweta a dutiful wife and Hans a hardworking, faithful husband. Their son Krishna on the other hand is full of mischief and tends to get into trouble.

The Saroops live in a Sugar Cane estate in Trinidad; these are old, dilapidated barracks from long ago.
Five families with five rooms that are only 10x10 feet with nothing between each but a cracked wooden partition.

However, where Krishna goes to school is where everyone with money lives (and where everyone in this God-forsaken shanty would love to go). Bell Village, where it appears that Trinidad is reborn, stands the Presbyterian Church, proud and tall
.
Krishna is the only one from the barracks who goes to school in Bell Village, and he hates it. He is constantly taunted and bullied mercilessly, and when he retaliates, he's the one who gets expelled. But Hans begs the Headmaster for Krishna to return, even though he hates it.

Krishna doesn't understand how you can be Hindu at home and Presbyterian at school; you can't serve two masters. This alone confuses and irritates Krishna.

I said before that Hans and Shweta appeared to be a happy couple, but something happened before Krishna was born. Something that no one ever speaks about, so life-altering that you must read it for yourself to find out exactly what. (SORRY)

The Changoor's:

Dalton Changoor is a very well-to-do man; however, of late, he has been acting very strangely.
Before disappearing, he went to the shed (where Marlee was listening) and had a conversation with his mother (Dalton believes his deceased mother is trapped inside a picture), where he spoke of a proper heir.
When he came out, he told Marlee to ensure she untied the dog, and then he vanished from sight.

Hans works for Mr. Changoor, so when the dogs get killed, the ransom notes start appearing; that's when Marlee gets the notion to hire Hans to stay overnight to guard the house.

The next day Hans comes to ask Mrs. Changoor about her husband, to which she says she has no idea when he'll return. He goes on to explain with further coaxing that he wants to ask for a raise and purchase land on Bell Village to build a house for his family.

Mrs. Changoor agrees and then states her terms about night guarding, which she then doubles his pay. To that, he cannot say no, plus she is offering meals with the income, the outshed, and his return at first light.

Hans accepts but hesitates to tell Shweta because it is not proper to stay at another man's home. This arrangement works perfectly until it doesn't matter when one of Hans's friends tells him that Hindu marriage is not recognized in the eyes of the law, only marriage by the church. So that means that Hans is a free man to do as he pleases.

Until it doesn't; Krishna peers through the window and sees that his father has lied to his mother about his whereabouts, then when she gets sick, Hans is nowhere to be found.

Until it isn't; "KRISHNA HAS HAD ENOUGH."

Hosein takes the idyllic, fairytale world Americans believe T&T to be and gives us Pure, Honest, and Unadulterated truth. The truth is that not everything is like a magazine cover, with gorgeous tropical beaches.

Hosein's word-building is "MIND BLOWING," he is a true "WORDSMITH."

He ensures his verbiage is authentic and stays true to his heritage and the Trinidadian culture.

Hosein paints a very detailed image of the dilapidated barracks the Saroops live in. The descriptive imagery is so true to life you can hear the flies buzzing over the food.

Hoseins' Novel is highly thought-provoking and awakening, filled with grief, despair, and love.

I still stand by my thoughts that this Novel has a far deeper layer.

A deeper layer means that there are lessons to be learned, especially if these are folktales. I'll say that they are 2, to be exact.

1 is a commandment

1 is of the 7 deadly sins

The only thing I wish was that he had a dictionary for the words native to Trinidad. For instance, (I know Jamaican patois very well) a Duppy and a Jumbie are the same, just different cultures. However! Being from NYC, that's a word I'm highly familiar with. But there was a lot that I had to look up because they were more proper in tone. Just a guess! As I said, I listened to my ex speak Jamaican Patois for 35 years.

Splendidly Executed Novel

Looking Forward to Hosein's Next Novel

An epic tale of Caribbean Folklore

"WELL DONE"

"BRILLIANT."

Thank you, NetGalley/Kevin Jared Hosein/Ecco/ For This Amazing eARC for my honest review. My opinions are of my own volition.