Vincent is shocked that his mother would ask such a trivial question when a riot is taking place where people are being killed, houses burned and shops looted. Auntie Bee greets him by asking if he has eaten. Earlier in the story, Auntie Bee’s son, Vincent, comes to Auntie Bee and Mel’s aid by driving through the curfew to pick them up. However, the story is not just a ball of tension. At a later point, Mel’s poignant exclamation to another mob, ‘We make our own sky, we can hold it up – together’ had me elated, impressed with the way Mel had changed over the course of a few days, but also panicked by what was to follow. At one point, Alkaf points out the contradiction of a mob who chants ‘Allahu akbar!’ while doing their best to destroy God’s creation. Yet, the plot also depicts a mob mentality where racial insults are exchanged and innocent lives are taken. Auntie Bee’s benevolent acts are shown further when her neighbors also seek safety in her house. Mel is taken in by a Chinese woman named Auntie Bee. In the midst of the chaos, there are kind and generous people, regardless of the color of their skin, reaching out to help one another. It also adds intensity to her context of seeking safe refuge in the middle of a chaotic riot. This counting ritual, part of her OCD and anxiety she developed since the death of her father a year before, is nail biting and exhausting. We meet a 16-year-old Malay girl named ‘Mel’, short for Melati, who seems to be battling images of her mother being killed in numerous ways whilst counting numbers in her head to appease the djinn that has taken residence in her mind. Then the main character slowly emerges in the first few pages. How would graphic violence, racism and OCD create this first line? I re-read it just to get my head around the shocking first line.
The story begins with one of the most shocking first sentences I’ve read: ‘By the time school ends on Tuesday, my mother has died seventeen times.’ I think back to the warning. As a non-Malaysian living and working in Malaysia, this was new to me. What could this story be about? Alkaf then shares that this is historical fiction based on the 1969 Race Riot in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She even pleads with the reader not to continue the book if it will hurt them in any way.
It begins with, “This book is not a light and easy read…’ and proceeds to warn about graphic violence, death, racism, OCD and anxiety triggers.
There is a strong introduction, or a warning, from Hanna Alkaf herself. The start of the story is an experience in itself. This was her debut novel back in 2019, and since then she has won multiple accolades. But seeing Hanna Alkaf’s name on the cover, I knew it was going to be good. Without reading the blurb but seeing the cover, I automatically assumed this was a dystopian story set in Asia somewhere. Review by Catherine Bae The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf
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