by Kae Tempest
If you haven’t already, I really highly recommend listening to and reading Kae Tempest’s work. He creates music and poetry as well as novels and you can feel his poetic, magnetic energy and rhythm in Having Spent Life Seeking. It is at times a desperately sad novel about characters who have been through terrible things, but it left me feeling hopeful and uplifted: it is a celebration of second chances. Tempest said one of the things he had pinned to his wall while writing this book was a daily reminder: “nobody should be condemned”.
We meet Rothko, the protagonist, six months after their release from prison. They have returned to their hometown, and have been working as a handyman. At a young age, their life experience diverged sharply from that of their sister, Sarai, who now has a family of her own, a job and a house, while Rothko is trying to rebuild their life from scratch. Rothko is a hardy and gentle soul who feels emotions unbearably deeply, just like their mum, Meg, who has been knocked down time and time again by the people around her. Rothko’s dad Ezra wanted to build the perfect, “normal” family, but this didn’t quite go to plan. The family lived in Edgecliff – a name which seems a good metaphor for Rothko’s experiences – on the verge of something, always in danger of falling, but somehow brought back from the edge by the beauty of the sea and the big open sky.
There is a lot of love in this story, and Tempest’s warmth and understanding of people really shines through. He unpacks the characters’ lives and choices in a way that makes total sense. He gets right to the heart of what drives people, and also what holds them back. My heart ached for Rothko and their mum most of all: two people just desperate to find themselves and their place in the world.
There were so many parts of this novel that really hit me – Tempest writes in a completely unapologetic way and the characters’ feelings spring off the page. A heart-wrenching, beautiful book.
Review by Jamie