The Unsettled, Ayana Mathis’ sophomore novel, is about the branches of a family tree that stretch north into Philly from Bonaparte Alabama. I think it may also be about the many sacrifices a mother makes to keep her family intact. Ava is the sturdiest link, her son Touissaint is a thinner one, but proves to be the most enduring.
Ava has fled an abusive relationship and ends up homeless with Touissaint as the novel opens. She is running — or trying to run — from herself, from lovers and boyfriends and husbands who turn her out, who make something inside her unhinge. It’s never really clear what has set her askew mentally and emotionally, but we know that love can be a maddening force. Loving the wrong person more than you love yourself can be a form of self-sabotage or flagellation and nothing is more clear in these pages than that when it comes to Ava.
Alongside her unraveling and the backstory that goes with it, Touissaint is a boy being asked to process adult moves and breakdowns. He bends - he stops going to school, he is intrigued by the street life and almost goes too far toward it - but he never breaks. Back in Alabama, his grandmother Dutchess is intent on maintaining his ancestral home in spite of efforts to steal it from her and the family.
It is Ava’s connection to the problem men in her life almost chops down that family tree forever. Reading this unfold is indeed, unsettling, but the title refers to something more, something additional. It’s been a couple of months since I finished the novel, but it’s one of those books that makes you contemplate it long after you’ve finished, and think about the meaning of being a nomad.
Finally, I have to say that I couldn’t help but think about the Africa family and the MOVE family firebombing while I read The Unsettled. The feelings of despair and lack of hope that things will ever be better came through with such beauty and honesty. Mathis’s prose is so clear and succinct. She writes about Ava’s cognitive dissonance with compassion laced with contempt, like the self-deprecating humor we engage with ourselves or others when we know we have made and are actively making bad decisions. Touissaint’s humiliation among his peers and his role to moving beyond it is also an important feature of the book, that ultimately puts readers on somewhat solid ground.
This looks good. Thank you for posting. It's available at my library.