Open Water by Calab Azumah Nelson is an undeniably touching contemporary novel about the dynamics of a raw, unadulterated human connection. A story set in and around South East London follows two young people trying to live as artists: our focaliser, a photographer and his best friend and later lover, a dancer. Not only is this text a beautiful love story but a comment on the experience of being black in London, black culture and mental health.
The novel begins in a pub, in South East London. The two characters meet and their immediate connection is obvious despite the woman being the girlfriend of a friend of his. The two characters are introduced by the boyfriend, because she needs a photographer for a project she is working on.
In their various meetings for this project the pair fall tenderly and desperately in love. Despite the beginning, when the lovers were concerned about hurting their mutual friend in their relationship, the couple seem to be each others source of total joy and comfortability.
What is most impressive about this debut novel is not a unique or elaborate plot but the lyrical way it is written. Nelson excels in turning the seemingly mundane into the beautiful and the tragic.
The Novel title ‘Open Water’ comes from a metaphor used throughout the text. Nelson describes falling in love as going into the open water- the vulnerability, lack of control and ability to get hurt when thrust into dangerous waters. Together they battle the peaks and troughs of life, especially the troubles of being young and black in London. Nelson’s portrayal of love, unlike others in recent media, is understated and real, resembling a quiet and dignified connection.
This novel is written in the second person, which admittedly took some getting used to as most fiction is written in the first or third. I found myself before the first ten pages engrossed in the writing and how Nelson crafted the voice of ‘you’.
Which added an immediacy to the action as you as a reader are right there with the focaliser, not like a spectator but privy to the mind and the feeling of the protagonist.
The perspective also allows for the reader to understand the collective experience of the black community.
When the speaker uses ‘You’ and narrates incidents of hate crime or micro aggression it not only addresses the isolated case of the protagonist but more widely the expansiveness of these actions.
Especially when Nelson comments on the focaliser getting pulled over because he looks like someone who committed an offence, an incident that sadly many young black people face daily.
Nelson through his protagonist’s comments on the struggle as a black man, to be understood, believed and most importantly seen.
This metaphor of ‘open water’ later shifts, I believe, to be about the vulnerability to open yourself up for people to love you after being misunderstood and misread your whole life as a black man.
This incredibly provocative novel is Nelson’s debut, his second novel ‘Small Worlds’ came out recently. I will be reading this novel with high expectations and looking out for Nelson’s name as no doubt he will not stop there.