That Reminds Me is the story of a young child growing into adulthood while negotiating the impossibly difficult circumstances of émigré life compounded by foster care, poverty, racism and varieties of cultural difference. Derek Owusu tell this story with extraordinary insight and emotional subtlety, almost inventing a new literary form as he takes you into this child/man's experience on an intimate, nearly cellular level. To call it moving is an understatement." —Mary Gaitskill
Owusu is writer of jaw-dropping talent and That Reminds Me will break over you like a storm, seething with wonder, wisdom, lightning, terrors and so much heartbreaking beauty. Simply glorious.” —Junot Díaz
“A dreamy, impressionistic offering of reassembled fragments of memories emerging through the misty beauty of a deliciously individualistic poetic sensibility with flashes of Twi and UK London Ebonics to further remind us of what has been missing from British poetry . . . I can't tell you how impressed I was and how much I enjoyed reading this stunning book.” —Bernardine Evaristo
“That Reminds Me is a profoundly moving book about Black bodies and identity, and about God, sex, family, art, love, and madness. It is somehow both tender and unflinching, and the prose has both the lyricism of verse and the direct simplicity of overheard speech. Derek Owusu has made a vital contribution to our culture, and it should be widely read.” —Sarah Perry
“When writing is this honest, it soars. I think that this is why the words in this collection fly around you and settle, as they have. What an incredible use of language and truth.” —Yrsa Daley-Ward
“Honest, insightful, and woven together in a narrative that will undoubtedly change lives.” —DeRay Mckesson
“These are words that come from the heart, the lived life and owned observations. Powerful and moving. Social realism at its best.” —Alex Wheatle
“That Reminds Me reads like an open wound. The prose runs like a pulse, builds like the beat of some lowercase drum. Honest and beautiful.” —Guy Gunaratne
“A fast-paced, dense, poetic, original, and bewitching story by an important new writer. That Reminds Me will long be remembered by readers.” —Alain Mabanckou
“A magnificent achievement.” —Paul Gilroy
“A singular achievement.” —Michael Donkor, The Guardian
04/01/2023
DEBUT Coming from Ghana to London as a small boy, K, the narrator of this short novel, does not have the best start in life, as he's sent from his parents' home into foster care and then out again. Returning home, he is welcomed with familiar foods and Ghanaian music into a community of aunts and uncles. But K's happy homecoming is short-lived. His life isn't much improved at home with a father who is alternately absent or abusive and a mother who turns a blind eye. A baby brother brightens things up for a short while. But the punishing cycle of poverty and racism take their toll on K and his brother. In the end, one experiences mental illness while the other falls into petty crime. VERDICT Published earlier in the UK, Owusu's slight novel was awarded the 2020 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction. Short chapters, some merely a paragraph in length, propel the narrative. Don't be fooled by its slight size, however; this poetic story packs a big emotional punch and will engage a range of readers.—Barbara Love
★ 2023-03-28
A young London man navigates depression in this hypnotic book.
There’s a life packed inside the pages of this slim novel. One of Owusu’s most impressive achievements here is creating the space of a much larger life—both for the novel’s narrator, K, and for K’s family—through elliptical references. The prose is often stunning: “So now I breathe British air with airs akin to royal heirs—my mum thought she was making a dark life fair.” The first half is told in short vignettes, each a page or less, and even in the second half, the chapters remain brief. K spends several early years in a foster home before reconnecting with his parents. His observations balance quotidian details—like the way he watched movies on TV in his youth—with more wrenching evocations of the crueler parts of childhood. At one point, for example, a friend of K’s comes to visit and is struck by his family’s poverty. “When we bickered in school, my living conditions were his weapon of choice,” Owusu writes. K's family ties to Ghana are a constant; a reference to “suitcases longing for their promised flight to Ghana” makes for another powerful image. As he grows older, K deals with depression; a stint in therapy ends when his therapist asks him, “Who taught you to hate yourself, K?” Even as Owusu writes about unsettling experiences, like the way K gains weight from taking medication for his mental health, his prose remains deft: “We call it uncle belly. I call it antidepressants causing more problems than solving.” By novel’s end, the reader is left feeling as though they’ve experienced another person’s life, both the ecstatic heights and harrowing depths.
Owusu reckons movingly with complex personal and familial dynamics.
