I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

Sometimes you cry in the dark.

A short novel, more like a novella, that is a love song in more ways than one: a love story of boy meets girl which on the surface seems conventional enough; a loving description of London and its black communities; a celebration of what it means to be young and hopeful, but also wounded and fearful.
The author manages to capture the universality of the exhilaration and magic of youthful love and finding your ‘soulmate’, but also brings us back to earth with a jolt, showing how abruptly this magic can be curtailed if you happen to inhabit a black body. There are certain quotes in the book which reminded me very strongly of James Baldwin (a clear influence), and which are heartbreaking in their restrained but clear anger:

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC!

I enjoyed this read and found it was beautifully written. The use of 2nd person was something unusual, especially for me! I'm not the biggest fan of this narrative and found it made me a little distant from the main character. There was a lot said for such a short book which I found fascinating. The actual story itself was a little slow but I appreciated the topics it covered and how it portrayed life living as a black person in the UK and all the injustices that come from that.

A compelling read. Beautifully written, well-thought-out characters, and a developed setting. Definitely evoked some great thinking long after I put the book down.

A wonderfully written book .

two young intelligent best friends set in London. This book is about falling for your best friends girl but it is more than that it’s about the power and feelings of love. The book explores black art and music a short book but a wonderful read.

What a work of art. I absolutely loved this extraordinary book. It's poetic, majestic, heartbreaking and real. I felt on the edge of my seat waiting for whatever was going to impact this growing love, and just what that was going to be. This is such a rich contemplation of love and desire and vulnerability. The central character's voice, written so perfectly in the second-voice, adds such a depth to the narrative. I was in his head, I was with him, I watched him and walked with him, and I experienced this form of writing in a new way. I can't rave enough and I look forward to the author's next book.

I requested this book on NetGalley after listening to an interview with the author. The book sounded wonderful and I’ll confess I found the interview more interesting than the story.

The basic premise is simple: boy meets girl, falls in love, ad breaks up. But the story isn’t the reason for reading this book. The author pours so much expression into words to describe what it’s like to ache with desire and fear and despair.

If you want to read a great story, I’m not sure this is the book for you. If you want to read lovely prose that cuts into the core of human emotion, then I recommend this highly. I wish there had been more of both of these in this book.

Both tender and bruising, Open Water is a phenomenal debut that packs an awful lot into a small page count. What seems to be a love-at-first-sight story develops into something more complex, peeling back the narrator’s vulnerabilities as a young British-Ghanaian man.

A photographer, his artistic soul connects him to community and Black culture, but it also leaves him raw and exposed, and that sensitive soul is too frangible when faced with trauma and grief.

The star here is Nelson’s sleek, beautiful prose. Although professing repeatedly that language is ‘flimsy and insufficient’ these words are anything but. A yawn is ‘contagious and she laughs as the baton is passed in a race only sleep will win’. A poet friend, observing the two lovers ‘sees both the tremble in the water and the sinking stone which caused the ripple’.

If anything, the writing might be too beautiful. It offers a poetic rendering of events, not an invitation to share those experiences (despite the second person POV, I did not feel drawn in). The love affair comes across as strangely inert. Much more vital were sections dealing with the narrator’s mental health, the persistent psychic strain of everyday racism, and the solace provided by art and music.

On that last point, there is a truly impressive number of Black artists and musicians namedropped in this short book. The Spotify playlist here is a highlight all of its own.

Open Water hovers that line between novella and novel. It is short and powerful, so call it what you want, but it is a great read. Reflecting on it now, I see it as a literary ode to Black art, music, and love. The protagonist is a young Ghanian-British living in London and trying to work as a photographer. One night, he meets a young Black British woman at a pub and the two hit it off. She is artsy as well and the two share a fondness for the same music. She has a boyfriend but she and the protagonist stay in touch and remain friends. The book follows their journey as they discuss life, music, their striving for success in the arts and the not-quite-fitting-in of being a Black student at a British private school. I loved all of the musical references and even discovered some new-to-me songs thanks to this book.

The book feels deeply personal and introspective. You can feel that the author really put his heart into this one. The fact that the author is a poet shines through in the lyrical prose. It's a stellar debut novel telling an important story of young Black lives in current society.

Highly recommend!

What to listen to while reading...
Move on Up by Curtis Mayfield
Fight the Power by The Isley Brothers
Could Heaven Ever Be Like This by Idrsi Muhammad
Alright by Kendrick Lamar
Brenda by Isaiah Rashad
Rope by Isaiah Rashad
Pak by Isaiah Rashad
Afraid of Us by Jonwayne
Junie by Solange
Dreams Kelsey Lu
My Mind Went Blank by DJ Screw
Scenario by A Tribe Called Quest
Classic Man by Jidenna
Grief by Earl Sweatshirt
Sky by Playboi Carti
Don't Cry by J Dilla
Fix Up, Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal
Pink + White by Frank Ocean

I got an ecopy of this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book more than I did. It had beautiful prose but I found it difficult to connect with the characters. I felt that the female protagonist seemed relatively 2D, I found the use of second person narrative challenging to stay connected, and I missed a lot of the cultural music connections which I think would have enhanced my reading. Worth reading but I feel like it almost would have shined more as a short story than in its current form as a novella.

The synopsis of Open Water mentioned "A stunning, shattering debut novel about two Black artists falling in and out of love". And yeah that explains pretty much the base story. But at the heart of this 145-page story is grief, duty, trauma, and the fear of being black in today's world.

"if flexing is being able to say the most in the fewest number of words, is there a greater flex than love?"

Two artists in their 20s - photographer and dancer, living in South London, start as friends but soon fall in love. But the journey is not easy as it is often shadowed by confusion and fear. Caleb, a British-Ghanian, captures the essence of being black lyrically. Told in second person through the eyes of an unnamed male narrator 'You', it captures the fresh feelings of young love, to discover the black culture and shared experience through music, art and cinema, to fear of being killed by the police just for being a black man. The themes of racism, mental health and toxic masculinity show the vulnerabilities of the narrator.

"It's one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen."

This is another theme in the book - the beauty of being seen rather than simply looked at. Being seen for all that you are rather than being seen just for what's expected of you.

Open Water is deeply touching, poetic, filled with raw emotion and feels intimate. Poetical or lyrical writing isn't my sort of thing AT ALL but nonetheless, this book mesmerised me from the first page and I've lost count of how many quotes I've highlighted. This is definitely a debut you shouldn't miss this year, especially if you love poetic writing. There is not much to say about this book. You have to experience it yourself. A love letter to Black art, enlightening, heart-wrenching, mesmerising, important and one of a kind read!

"Sometimes you forget to be you is to be a Black body, and not much else."

"We are all hurting. We are all trying to live, to breathe, and find ourselves stopped by that which is out of our control. We find ourselves unseen. We find ourselves unheard. We find ourselves mislabelled. We who are loud and angry, we who are bold and brash. We who are Black."

The style of flowery writing threw me a little but I still mostly enjoyed this. This book really wasn't for me but many reviewers gave it a 5 star rating so I would definitely recommend.

Open Water is deliciously a deliciously poetic and heartfelt story that excels in evoking emotion: the thrill of young love, physical and emotional exhaustion, physical and emotional numbness, the noise of a small world within a big city. Second-person narration is difficult to pull off, but here it melts into the flurry of color and sound created by the prose. This was an incredibly accomplished debut.

This is a beautiful novella about the difficulties facing young black adults in the UK/Great Britain. It discussed a lot of sensitive topics and the love story is added just for extra entertainment, I'm sure. I enjoyed it. But I also found myself having a hard time getting past the lyrical writing style. It irritated me the same way poor grammar would. Because more than a few times I had to go back and reread random parts of paragraphs and sentences. It's very reminiscent of Shakespeare. I'm not kidding. The flowery, poetic way of writing is beyond ridiculous. Kind of pompous, in fact. So I'm not sure how to rate this... But I'm gonna go with 3.5 stars.

Thanks netgalley for giving me the pdf so that I can share my thoughts and opinions with y'all 🧡

What a beautiful book this is. In gorgeously poetic prose, the author explores fresh love, identity and life as a Black man and creative in London.

This book should be completely about Black joy and a love story. But the reality is, as a Black man in London, he can never feel entirely safe, or even seen.

What starts out as a love story, ends up as an exploration of the impact of his kind of trauma on individuals and those around them.

3.5★
“It’s a familiar tongue you note, definitely south of the river. Definitely somewhere you’d be more likely to call home. In this way there are things which you both know and speak with your very being, but here go unsaid.”

Boy meets girl in a very different style from anything I can remember reading before. It’s written in the second person, addressing “you”, commenting on your thoughts and actions. It’s unusual, and I think it may have made me feel a little more judgemental about what the narrator, you, did and said, almost as if the voice were of a teacher or mentor looking over his shoulder.

The narrator is a young black man in London. The accent he refers to is that of a friend’s girlfriend, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this feeling of instant familiarity does not bode well for the friend. The friend introduces them saying they are both artists.

But it’s not their art that draws them together. It’s something more electric, and the tension is continued for a long, long time, as they dance around each other, talk about music, the sounds, the importance of silences. They talk about painting, talk about everything except their growing affection. They refer to each other as “friend”.

It’s a kind of delicious time when people are tentative and unsure, but pretty sure but not entirely sure, but maybe, if they’re careful and don’t make any missteps, they will become “an item”, as someone asks them if they are. They laugh – no! Swimming out into open water, making yourself vulnerable, is frightening.

She lives in Dublin and has to leave frequently, which is always kind of bittersweet. He pretends to run after the train, like the movies. I know exactly how they feel. When she’s gone, he’s alone.

“Your house is too quiet, or rather it is loud in the absence of others. Your parents are still in Ghana, celebrating your grandma’s life. Your little brother has returned to university. You’re home alone. The silence is something you normally crave in such a full household, but something is missing.”

She is a lively friend. Here, she describes her love of dancing, of filling some of the silences.

“‘I like to move,’ she starts. ‘I always have. Used to catch me on the playground out-dancing everyone. It’s my space, you know? I’m making space and I’m dancing into the space. I’m like, dancing into the space the drums leave, you know, between the kick and the snare and the hat, where that silence lies, that huge silence, those moments and spaces the drums are asking you to fill.’”

They faced similar problems at school, being different. He is long and lanky, and the boys at his were showing him the way to his classes and making conversation.

“One of them studies you closer, ‘He looks like Gabs, doesn’t he? What you think, Andre?’

Andre gives a non-committal grunt. Gabs, when you meet, is an enormous Nigerian boy, holding a quick-witted charm with an easy smile. The comparison is obvious, a little lazy.”

Black is black.

And love is love.

“You realize there is a reason clichés exist, and you would happily have your breath taken away, three seconds at a time, maybe more, by this woman.”

It’s a beautiful story but a frustrating one for me. There were so many references to songs and music and artists of whom I’m completely ignorant. I don’t know if other readers know all of these, or if I’m just supposed to assume that these two people (and their friends) do, so that’s what brings them together.

This is not a happily-ever-after story, but it is certainly thought-provoking. I have to admit that I nearly gave up on it and that I skimmed some of it, short though it is. But there was still something that kept pulling me along. I just had to know how they would fare.

I’m having a hard time rating it, because it’s like rating poetry. Some things about it I loved, but some things I found annoying, as if it’s trying too hard to be different.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

This has a really steady, compelling flow. I am so impressed by the weaving in of meditations on Blackness in Britain into the story of falling in love with someone and also the reminders that the physicality of the male voice speaking is his own (big, pushed into playing certain sports at all white schools, but not necessarily identifying with the role others cast him into). I also really loved the involvement of family, quotations from various pop culture essays, even a highly believable account of a conversation with Zadie Smith. Real life is woven in extremely skillfully. There were moments where I questioned whether the plot was pulling me in enough. There is a leisureliness in the telling. But I still want to go back to it and read certain parts of it. It is really accmplished and unique, certainly so for a debut novel.

I was drawn to this novel based on its synopsis about two young black Londoners falling in love. But I could not get past the very flowery writing. I thought this was gonna be a quick read since it's only 160 pages, I was wrong. It was struggle trying to get to 40 pages. Unless you are into lyrical writing don't read this.

Unique and beautiful are two words to describe the writing in <b>Open Water</b> by Caleb Azumah Nelson whilst thought provoking describes his story.    I'm certain there are other words to define his writing style, for the way he strung his words together, but I don't know them.    It was lyrical, almost poetic, the refrain of his words imparting a musical quality.   Certain phrases repeated over and over in different contexts but they reinforced his message just like the chorus of a song.

The main characters, male and female, were both unnamed.   They were both creative.  He a photographer and musically inclined, she a dancer.    Not only did they share a creative bent but they had a common love of music, finding themselves able to breathe freely, to be seen, to forget their fears when at clubs filled with others who looked just like them.    This made the musical quality of the writing even more fitting.  

These two shared similar backgrounds and had an undeniable attraction to each other.    The story showed the arc of their relationship and I enjoyed the way it developed.    An invisible thread keeping them together, loving each other.   And yet, like any thread it was not immune to severance and this story showing the thread being pulled taut to breaking point.     Tensions developing between them because of an inability for him to express his fears.

The inherent fear associated with being a young black male in a predominantly white society.   It's not about slavery.   It is afterall a contemporary novel but make no mistake it is about freedom, or the lack of.  It's about skin colour.   It's about the feeling of not being seen for who they are but what they represent as a result of having black skin.   Its about unfair suspicions on people with their (his) appearance.   It's about going out and not knowing whether you'll get back.  And its about how these fears infiltrate everyday life.

This message caused me to reflect on my own attitudes towards those who look different to me.    Do I unwittingly cast aspersions, suspect wrongdoing?     I would like to claim innocence but fear I may have done this.     I mentioned the writing was beautiful and I highlighted passage after passage.  Huge chunks of text that resonated with me, opened my eyes and my heart to his message.   Too many to select a favourite but the following demonstrates some of what this review has focussed on.

This of an unprovoked search:

<b>" They say many residents describe a man fitting your description. They ask where you are going and where you have come from. They say you appeared out of nowhere. Like magic, almost. They don’t hear your protests. They don’t hear your voice. They don’t hear you. They don’t see you. They see someone, but that person is not you. They would like to see what is in your bag. Your possessions are scattered across the ground in front of you. They say they are just doing their jobs. They say you are free to go now." </b>

And this following yet another search only days later:

<b>" They ordered you to the ground for symbolic purposes. Playing dead. You let out a skinny whimper sharp as a butter knife. You heard the sound rattle in your chest, pressing shut unserious features. Total eclipse. When you came to, you were beside yourself. This is what it means to die, you thought. Total eclipse. The sky turned black. Ha. You looked in one of their eyes and saw the image of the Devil. He had an index finger gripping the trigger, like he was holding onto a lifeline. He looked scared, behind the crumpled forehead, the hard eyes, he looked scared. He looked scared of what he did not know, of what was different.</b>

Of planning a night out dancing:

<b>You’re looking forward to forgetting, albeit briefly, the existential dread which plagues you, which tightens your chest, which pains your left side. You’re looking forward to forgetting that, leaving the house, you might not return intact. You’re looking forward to freedom, even if it is short, even if it might not last. You’re looking forward.</b>

And then in their place of safety, where they feel free from anxiety and immerse themselves in the music.

She says

<b>"I dance to breathe but often I dance until I’m breathless and sweaty and I can feel all of me, all those parts of me I can’t always feel, I don’t feel like I’m allowed to. It’s my space. I make a little world for myself, and I live.’
</b>

While he says
<b> Do not resist the call of a drum. Do not resist the thud of a kick, the tap of a snare, the rattle of a hi-hat. Do not hold your body stiff but flow like easy water... Can you hear the horns? Your time has come. Revel in glory for it is yours to do so. You worked twice as hard today, but that isn’t important, not here, not now. All that matters is that you are here, that you are present, can’t you hear? What does it sound like? Freedom?"
</b>

And finally, the way he thinks of their relationship

<b>" You’re like a pair of jazz musicians, forever improvising . Or perhaps you are not musicians, but your love manifests in the music. Sometimes, your head tucked into her neck , you can feel her heartbeat thudding like a kick drum. Your smile a grand piano, the glint in her eye like the twinkle of hands caressing ivory keys. The rhythmic strum of a double bass the inert grace she has been blessed with, moving her body in ways which astound. A pair of soloists in conversations so harmonious, one struggles to separate. You are not the musicians but the music. It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen.
</b>

The quotes I've used are from an ARC and are subject to change.  
It was a long review as I has many things to think upon.   Suffice to say, I loved the book and the more I think on it the more impressive I find it.     If you get the opportunity to read Open Water I highly recommend you take it.    My thanks to the author, to Black Cat (an imprint of Grove Atlantic) and to Netgalley for the opportunity of reading this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review which it was my absolute pleasure to provide.

Though I'd long looked forward to reading Open Water, I ended up struggling with both the story and the writing. The story itself seemed to meander and was slow to develop any real momentum. I think that was in part because the writing was a little too fussy. It felt like the author was trying too hard to create something different/artsy. Though it was a short book, I struggled to finish and will not be sharing my thoughts on any other platforms.

I none the less appreciate the opportunity to read this book.