Bayou Pages | “The Furrows” by Namwali Sherpell
REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE
“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.”

The aforementioned opening words of Namwali Sherpell’s new novel, chilling and ambiguous, suggest a confessional of sorts, a dive into the abyss of emotion that follows a tragic loss. And that would be right…sort of. Twelve-year-old Cassandra and her brother, who is 7, are playing at the beach when Wayne is sucked under the waves. Cassandra rushes to drag her brother to shore while fighting the current and exhaustion. When she awakes onshore, there is no sign of Wayne, and her thoughts are jumbled. A man in a windbreaker stands over, his face blocked by the sun, claiming no knowledge of Wayne’s whereabouts.
The first half of the book reads ambiguously, layering Cassandra’s grief alongside the raw emotions of her parents. Being the last person to see Wayne, her parents question her relentlessly. As the years pass, Wayne’s absence impacts the family dynamic as members isolate in various corners of grief, Sherpell writes, “The world was tilted now and Wayne’s absence in our lives had become the drain toward which everything ran.” Cassandra thinks she sees Wayne everywhere. Would she even recognize her little brother as a grown man?
Sherpell’s a master of language and nuance. At times, I kept turning back pages, making sure I didn’t miss something that led to this plot point. The structure of the novel seems to mirror the experiences of grief I’ve read from Joan Didion and Ocean Vuong – masterful storytellers and lovers of language. The novel shapeshifts and bends genres, flirting with time and changing narrative voices. Halfway through the novel, we glimpse Cassandra through a fresh set of eyes, perhaps a stranger? Perhaps even Wayne?
Sherpell explores themes of identity, loss, family, and uncertainty. She shows the messiness of grief, the unanticipated waves that cycle like the sea, though with less regularity. This was one of those books I wasn’t sure I enjoyed, then couldn’t put down, and still can’t stop thinking about. I imagine how this book would read in the midst of intense grief. Would it provide comfort? Frustration? A new layer of sadness? Could it help heal? Can we ever heal from loss? Sherpell refrains from tacking questions, but like the best authors presents readers with more questions.
Namwali Sherpell has won several awards for her 2019 novel The Old Drift. A former professor at UC Berkeley, Sherpell is now a Professor of English at Harvard.
“Grief doesn’t choose its timing well; you’ll never know when it will grip your neck.”