The Bread The Devil Knead

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The Bread the Devil Knead is Allie’s story. She could very well be one of the many women we find around ourselves – confident and ambitious at work while they get battered at home and lead a dangerous domestic life. More than Allie, the book reveals society’s relationship with domestic abuse and how women bear the responsibility for it. By using Trinidadian Creole, Allen-Agostini makes Allie’s story a deeply personal one. For someone who has nothing to herself, her memories and stories become her sole belongings. Locating Allie in Port of Spain, the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago, we get a better understanding of how cultures affect one’s sense of self. The tale of Alethea is not an easy one, it is profoundly complex, deeply moving and unabashedly real. With themes such as rape, incest, child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, misogyny, murder, colourism, racism, among many more, the book is a reflection of the world we live in, told with a frankness that is not exclusionary or accusatory, simply fact. Colin helps Allie recover in the aftermath of Leo's death. After the funeral, he takes her to his friend Sister Michael Pierre's retreat center for trauma survivors. Michael encourages Allie to write about her past and her trauma. In doing so, Allie finds healing and renewal.

I doesn’t have woman friends. Woman deceitful, my mother used to say. You can’t trust them. And every man I ever had discourage me from making too much friend.” However, Allie does not let it affect her and sets off for work as if nothing had transpired just a few hours before. Though she is aware that this is not, cannot, be love, she defends Leo when her coworkers suggest that she should seek legal counsel. This is frustrating for the reader but anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse or knows anyone who has, knows this to be all too true. The veneer of happiness and dignity becomes a defence mechanism. Finally, I loved the fact that the book is written in Trinidadian Creole, which made the reading experience so immersive and rooted in place and culture. Alethea’s voice comes through as authentic. I enjoyed looking up various words and phrases and their history, and now wish I had the audiobook to fully understand how Allen-Agostini’s prose was meant to be heard. The descriptions of the landscape, the sun, the heat, the smell of roti, and the crowds dancing to soca at a fete carried me overseas, as all good fiction should. There are also some surprising revelations and occurrences in the story which make it a thoroughly dramatic and engrossing read. At one point, Alethea wryly comments that her life has more twists than a soap opera. Yet, I fully bought her character because her distinct personality and the tone of her Trinidadian voice felt so real. At times this meant the narrative became a little too overloaded with her recounting small unnecessary details. However, it also allows her space to reflect and point to larger issues such as colourism on the island: “Is still a kind of racial, colour-conscious place where people who look like me does get through when people who look like he doesn't get one shit.” The way in which people who have different skin tones are treated in subtly different ways was also skilfully incorporated into the story. It presents a complex portrait of a community. But the focus of this novel is always centred on Alethea herself. By the end of the book I became aware of how something as simple as her choice of surname could become so loaded with deeper implications and meaning. It's a moving depiction of one woman's difficult journey to independence.The rollercoaster of Alethea’s life shows us what it means to be a resilient survivor. It was an insightful and important representation of abusive relationships and the complicated factors that can lead to them and make it difficult to leave. I never meet a man yet who wouldn’t horn you if you give he a chance, but maybe that was just me. I is a bad-man magnet, I does tell myself sometimes.”

The hardest part of this reflection, unsurprisingly, is the devastating depiction of child sexual abuse, which defined Alethea’s childhood and informed her life for decades to come. Whilst the instinct of many readers, and society more broadly, is often to look away, or to skim past the unpalatable truth, the reality is that it is that very instinct which creates the environment within which such abuse can be perpetuated with impunity. That is why stories like these are incredibly important to bring such issues into the light and into mainstream discourse. Not only does it give voices to survivors, but it increases awareness of the sheer prevalence of child sexual abuse and the urgent need to do more to combat it. From the start, Lisa Allen-Agostini’s wonderful writing and beautiful use of Creole instantly transports you to Trinidad, where we follow the story of Alethea as she comes to deal with her past and present traumas. Overcome by confusion and despair, Allie retreats into herself. In spite of her reclusiveness, none of her friends abandons her. When they throw her an impromptu birthday party, Allie is filled with gratitude. While out all together celebrating, Leo proposes and Allie accepts. The Bread the Devil Knead was shortlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction along with five other titles. Ruth Ozeki took home the winner’s trophy for The Book of Form and Emptiness.

It’s clear that sex is complicated. Her feelings and motivation around sex swing widely between extremes. Her violent ongoing rape for over a decade combined with the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse from her mother was (understandably) traumatic and she never received the help she needed to work through those experiences and the impact it had on her. She fell into a cycle abuse and rape/sexual assault in most of her relationships.

Colin tells Allie one day that their grandmother Ma left them her house in Valencia. Allie is initially thrilled to finally have something of her own. However, when she, Colin, and Leo visit the house together, she starts to feel differently. While at the house, Colin reveals that Mammie and Allan had an incestuous relationship and Allie is their child. Allie convinces her boss Bobby to hire her friend Jerry to do the shop's window displays for the upcoming Fire Fete. While Jerry is working at On the Town, he learns the truth about Allie's relationship. Showing her his own scars and sharing stories from his own abusive relationship, he urges her to leave Leo. Allie is very relatable, the woman next door, which is just the point. Allen-Agostini explores the idea that an apparently normal relationship can be rotten on the inside and that women put on a good face, often while feeling powerless to change their situation. When Allie’s friend suggests she go to the police, Allie responds “You joking? What police go do? Say is man and woman business and leave me to get more cutass.” The book explores the complicated subject of love, how and why we justify and enable abuse in our communities. I read even beyond this, that Allie sometimes acted in ways to prove to herself that she deserved her abuse.

Alethea’s voice is strong and distinct from the outset; she’s passionate, no nonsense and independent. One of my favourite storylines was seeing how she reconnects with both Colin and her old school friend Jankie, and how her friendship develops with her colleague Tamika. These are necessary surprises she wasn’t expecting; she starts to open up, let people into her life and realise she can be happy and importantly, that she deserves it. When Allie is 17 years old, she runs away from home. She is sad to leave Colin, but feels she has no other choice. She relies upon her friend Jankie for help and support. Allie refuses to meet up with Colin in spite of his repeated attempts to do so. Once she finally agrees, she regrets her decision. Colin not only sees her bruises, but brings up Mammie and Allan. She flees the lunch prematurely, afraid of discussing the truth. Now, this certainly wasn’t an easy read; the realities of the protagonist, Alethea, living in Trinidad and Tobago dealing with abuse from her partner Leo and childhood trauma is harrowing. Themes of physical and mental abuse, incest, colourism, and death surround her story, alongside having an affair with her boss it is clear she is keeping busy and “dealing” with her situation to the best of her abilities. When Allie is a little girl, she lives with her mother Marcia, or Mammie. When Allie is roughly five years old, her uncle Allan shows up in her home with his young son Colin. He tells his sister that Colin's mother has abandoned them and he needs her to raise Colin. For a few days, Mammie and Allie assume Colin's care. Allie immediately falls in love with Colin and sees him as her brother, although she understands him to be her cousin. Not long later, Allan reinserts himself into the family. He begins sexually abusing Allie. Because Mammie has had a history of emotionally and verbally abusing Allie, too, she does nothing to stop Allan's aggression.

Lisa Allen-Agostini has created a tale that is full of violence and pain, but also light and hopeful – the relationships feel fully formed and familiar, and the setting of Trinidad makes the story pulse with excitement and heat. The use of Trinidadian Creole throughout the book was brilliant as it really situates the story in a specific place and made the characters feel authentic. We had the honour of hearing the author read an excerpt from the book (a carnival scene that has really made me want to experience a Trinidadian carnival one day) and in her voice, with the Trinidadian accent, it made the scene come alive! Allen-Agostini has said she writes Caribbean stories for Caribbean people and this book undoubtedly belongs to them. As a white reader living in London, this was an education on the wonder of Trinidad and Tobago. Alive with colour, warmth, and vibrance, island life is a stark contrast to rainy old England but the darkness that lives on Trinidad, lives here too.Domestic violence is universal – only the statistics vary from region to region. Yet, when one is at the receiving end of it, the numbers and statistics blur into each other. It does not matter that you are just one of the many – as is the case with any misfortune, the enormity of such a situation seems incomprehensible. A triumph of language The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Allen-Agostini, Lisa. The Bread the Devil Knead. Myriad Editions, 2021. Alethea Lopez is about to turn 40. Fashionable, feisty and fiercely independent, she manages a boutique in Port of Spain, but behind closed doors she's covering up bruises from her abusive partner and seeking solace in an affair with her boss. When she witnesses a woman murdered by a jealous lover, the reality of her own future comes a little too close to home. Allen-Agostini does not dawdle and launches into the monstrosity of Allie’s domestic life right away. There is no way to blunt the edges of domestic abuse and the author does not try to either. Allie’s boyfriend, Leo (a good-looking musician who can be quite charming), is her abuser. The silence in which she suffers the previous night’s blows is jarring to read. I really want to avoid spoilers in this review, but I will warn readers that this is not an easy read – on the one hand, I could not put it down, wanting to start the next chapter as soon as I finished the last and on the other, I found the portrayal of violence and abuse in it really tough to get through, making it a really harrowing read. Pacing yourself is essential here, but don’t let that discourage you as the author’s ability to balance pain and humour is truly impressive and makes this an outstanding read.