Perhaps in an ancient land like Croatia it’s easier to find stories underneath stories. Especially in the case of the small, centrally located town of Gost, which used to be important as a provincial capital but lately ekes out an existence as a ghost town with people still in it.
It seems like half its citizens have left. “Left” is too euphemistic a word. In many cases, “fled” would be a better word. In some cases, “dragged out” would be the best expression. Those who remain are not going to talk to you about it. That would be bad for the tourism that never seems to come anyway.
Imagine you lived in a small suburb where all the members of, say a particular church, ran away or were thrown into a ravine. Half the houses on your block are deserted. So your neighbors break into those houses to make off with a choice rug or with a TV that’s better than the one they own. Have you always admired your neighbor’s coat? Now you can smash down their door and take it since you know they cannot come back.
There’s a cold blooded scene where Duro, the hired man in Aminatta Forna’s novel, passes a couple in the street who he knows are walking off with their neighbor’s plundered belongings. No one says anything. They just walk past each other.
—–
Laura and her teenage children, Grace and Matthew, have turned up improbably in Gost to take advantage of a real estate opportunity. Laura and her husband Conor, who has remained in the U.K. on business, have spotted a summer home with potential in Gost on the internet. They’re going to fix it up and flip it. That’s just a springboard. They’re going to leapfrog through the region flipping underrated properties.
Laura runs into long-time native Duro as she’s puzzling over how to turn on the water to “the blue house” as it’s known in the community. Duro, who lives nearby, shows her the location of the water main. How much does Duro really knew about the house?
Since Duro is a freelance contractor in need of money, he starts doing piecemeal jobs around the blue house, deserted for many years and in need of major renovation. It’s odd that Duro seems to take on chores at the house on his own initiative. And it’s odd that some of the best visual features of the property appear to be defaced. What could be the reason for covering over a beautiful mosaic on the front wall of the blue house?
When he senses that Laura is getting uptight with his familiar, friend-of-the-family presence, he makes sure to arrive in work clothes and play his part as the hired man. This seems to reassure her. It’s part of the delicate dance of intimacy that takes place between almost antisocial Duro, the poised and smooth-as-silk Laura, her plainer but sweet and earnest daughter Grace, and her tuned-out son Matthew, who acts like he’s trying out for the role of apprenticed teenaged zombie.
Laura admires the fields of wildflowers that surround the blue house. Forna is a narrative master. The story is revealed like drops of honey seeping out of a beehive. Laura is the sort of person who wants to keep the surface of her life pleasant. Duro realizes that she’d rather be told a beautiful lie than an unpleasant truth.
But if some characters in The Hired Man want their lives to be a succession of anodyne experiences, Forna requires her readers to know more. Those beautiful fields of wildflowers are abandoned farmers’ fields. Where are the farmers? Why are there so many choice properties to flip?
There’s a “This Old House” feel to some of The Hired Man as Duro’s work reveals hidden or lost wonders. A beautiful mosaic on the front of the house is slowly revealed. What is its hidden image? Why has it been covered? A tiled fountain is restored. A vintage car found in a shed is polished and repaired.
—–
As Duro, working with empathetic daughter Grace, does the painstaking work of revealing the lost wall mosaic, you realize that he already knows what has been covered over. Aminatta Forna tells her story as if she was revealing and restoring a lost mosaic, a complex tiled portrait that many of her characters want to keep concealed.
Forna tells a story in the light, a pleasant “let’s fix up an old house in the country” story. And then she tells a story in the dark, about the people who used to live in that house. Laura just knows the daylight story but the reader gradually uncovers both. You’re on edge as you read, wondering if the noir beast at the bottom of the ravine is going to surface and overwhelm Laura’s family with their mundane dreams of a secure life through real estate speculation.
The Hired Man is coming from Atlantic Monthly Press, probably in October. I read a galley provided by the publisher. It’s thoughtful, literate, with a masterly reveal and characters you will care about.
