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Love After Love

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Love After Love

By: Ingrid Persaud
Narrated by: Ingrid Persaud
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About this listen

ONE OF STYLIST'S BEST NEW BOOKS FOR 2020

Meet the Ramdin-Chetan family: forged through loneliness, broken by secrets, saved by love.

Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together. Home: the place where your navel string is buried, keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world. Happy and loving they are, until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.

Brave and brilliant, steeped in affection, Love After Love asks us to consider what happens at the very brink of human forgiveness, and offers hope to anyone who has loved and lost and has yet to find their way back.

©2020 Ingrid Persaud (P)2020 Faber & Faber Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Heartfelt Feel-Good Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"It made me ugly cry." (Jessie Burton)

"Glorious." (Rachel Joyce)

"Spellbinding." (André Aciman)

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I love how believable the story and really held my attention, I loved it, easy but intense read

damn what a sad story

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Listening to the author narrate the story really helped put it into perspective. Great book. I highly recommend!

Great narration by the author!

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Beginning a it confusing but totally absorbing the deeper I got into the book

A story of 3 people's lives and loves

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The characters are so rich and real. The story takes us on a journey so beautifully touching on all aspects of the human experience, relationships, family and love while bringing to light so many social issues. It was also refreshing to hear a West Indian story with common narratives, sayings and behaviour that I recognise in my own family. It was truly wonderful and absolutely perfect.

Just incredible

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This is a great story, grabbed me from the start and couldn't stop listening.
Great narration. Definitely worth a listen.

Brilliant read.

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Love After Love is a very moving story about family. Family by blood and the family we create through circumstances. All these families are tied together by love. But families can be devastated by loss, violence, secrets, shame, anger, misunderstandings and prejudices. This story spans so many themes. Persaud gives us her perspective on modern Trinidad & Tobago and some of the social struggles from the personal experiences of ordinary people - in this story they are Betty, her son Solo and Mr Chetan, lodger. The unconventional family. Some of the themes are universal, such as toxic masculinity and its impact on women and children. She tackles homophobia in the Caribbean and social rejection and isolation, violence and death are constant threats to their welfare, freedoms, happiness and lifestyle. She seems to juxtapose the life of women with that of gay men. She shows how women can now enjoy a certain amount of sexual freedom in modern day T&T but are still at risk of domestic, physical and sexual violence from men. But gay men can only enjoy the privilege of being males by hiding their sexuality. Their sexual interactions happen in secret- in dark seedy places shrouded in shame.

Persaud also positions gay men as good male role models for boys without fathers. They can fill the gap for the children of single mothers, especially those raising their sons alone. It is as if gay men can be also be considered the antithesis of toxic masculinity.

Amidst the tragedies which unfold in the book, there is some hope. Hope that the bonds of family are as strong as they’re fragile. There are always invisible threads of love holding families together, even after they’re gone whether through wilful separation or death.

I recommend this book. I listened to the audio version and the writer did such a good job as the narrator. 5 stars.

Loving Love After Love. Highly recommend!

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An unusual and interesting story that really informs the listener about life in Trinidad. Coming from the island of Ireland, though bigger than Trinidad, there were similarities in the outlook of the people that resonated with me. An example of this is the prejudice against gay people, something that has really only loosened up in Ireland in the past 10 years, and we still have a way to go, particularly within certain groups, religious and otherwise. Another example is the beauty of the landscape and coast, very different of course to Ireland, but something that attracts tourists who flock to experience this, and yet for many of the residents of Trinidad, they only want to leave. And indeed, this is what the author did, at the age of 18.
I agree with other reviewers who say the story dragged in the middle. I did find there was too much repetition. We get it. I understand that different perspectives were being expressed, but many details were stated again and again. Sharper editing needed.
The author, Ingrid Persaud, was excellent at passionate exchanges between characters, revelling in the Trinny accent and dialectic vocabulary. I enjoyed learning the unfamiliar phrases and expressions. However, her own educated British accent seemed to slip in regularly, almost as if when she was tired it was harder to make the effort required to keep up the island accent. I did love her Betty characterisation though. I got a real sense of this small, dynamic woman who had been through so much. Betty encapsulates the essence of the novel, which is of course love, in all its forms.
I am glad I read this book, and it has given me an insight into, and an interest in Trinidad and the other islands.

All of human life

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Such a beautiful story. I've laughed, cried and fumed, but loved every single word

Beautiful

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This is a beautiful book, spanning generations and countries. The narration was excellent. Thoroughly recommended.

Gorgeous in every way

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an emotional novel filled with believable characters. touching, thoughtful,, real. I know nothing of Trinidad or its people,, this novel has inspired me to learn more.
I cried a river of tears, the writing is powerful, relatable. many topics covered. thank you to the author

exceptional, emotional

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