I Am Dust

This book is magical and extraordinary, as is the author, her daughter and her grandfather. I feel like I know them all, though we’ve never met. I’m unable to give an objective opinion because this book and her debut How to Be Brave will forever be etched in my heart and mind as books that evoked an experience that I now have a personal connection to.

A Dedication

I Am Dust was dedicated by Louise Beech to my 17 year old daughter Allia Jen who passed away suddenly in Aug 2019 as the last chapters to this book were being written.

Like Louise’s daughter, Allia Jen lived with the daily grind (4 injections/day) of Type 1 diabetes. Louise’s excellent novel How to Be Brave (about a daughter’s challenging diagnosis and an arduous ‘lost at sea’ survival story inspired by her own Grandad Colin’s war story), was my reading choice when Jen had corrective back surgery for scoliosis in 2016.

We experienced a kind of psychic connection as that book took us on a trip, me experiencing symptoms of being lost at sea and for Allia Jen, the post midnight, morphine-induced presence of three beings with “strange English accents” present in the room. ‘It was Granddad Colin’, I said.

Jen loved the theatre, it was their favourite holiday activity, signing up for week long, full day theatre activities, mostly improvisation, rarely scripted. At first it seemed incomprehensible, having spent six years of primary school mute, never speaking in class, to school friends, or the teacher. And then wanting to sign up for theatre? Yes, but never with friends or anyone who Jen knew and I was requested not to attend the final show. I didn’t mind. I loved that she’d found her voice, was projecting it on stage and had found a new community of like-minded souls.

So ‘I Am Dust‘, a suspenseful, teen drama with a psychic element and a protagonist whose great love is the theatre, a character who is creative and doesn’t recognise her own talent, is a magical and meaningful gift to a mother who totally gets it.

The power is in us all along.

Book Review: I Am Dust

The novel is written in a past/present dual narrative. In 2005 we meet Chloe, Jess and Ryan, teenagers in a youth theatre group that is rehearsing Macbeth; alternate chapters bring us to present day 2019 where Chloe works as an usher at the Dean Wilson Theatre, Jess is now the actress ‘Ginger’ and no-one has seen or heard of Ryan since that summer of Macbeth.

Morbid curiosity, youthful bravado and teenage love had joined the three of them, on a dusty stage in a church.

Louise Beech Playwright Author Writer I Am Dust Hull

Author, Playwright Louise Beech

The theatre is believed to be haunted by long-dead actress Morgan Miller who played the lead in the opening premiere of the musical ‘Dust’ a season that ended after four nights due to the tragedy.

The teens had been involved in a spooky game after hours, each of them with an ulterior motive; as the narrative progresses in the present, Chloe recalls what happened in the past, things she’d forgotten.

For some reason when Chloe chatted with Jess, a void cracked open and memories Chloe hadn’t known were there slithered out, like lava laden with debris – the dusty stage at the youth theatre, a box with letters and a glass in it, and three shimmering candles.

The past gains clarification and the present moves towards the re-staging of the iconic musical creating an atmosphere of eerie suspense and renewed interest in the unsolved murder of the lead actress.

‘How did we forget?
‘Don’t people bury traumatic memories?’
‘Maybe,’ muses Ginger. ‘But it’s more like…I don’t know. It’s like the synopsis of a play. We just can’t see the actual script.’
‘I agree. I can see bits clearly…other stuff, not so much.’

The setting in the theatre is realistically evoked, as if we are there; as the lights go down and the crackle of a voice comes through the radio earpiece with it’s threatening tone, a shiver runs down my spine and I imagine her in the dark looking around for the source of the menace.

At times the suspense is dragged out and the scenes with the teens end prematurely making the reader wait for them to meet again, but by the time to musical is close to opening for the second time, the pace has picked up and I’m no closer to suspecting the truth behind the mystery element of the novel, my one suspicion turning out to be hopelessly wrong and the finale comes as a shock.

And then the most beautiful, reverent ending that evoked all kinds of emotion in me and had tears rolling my cheeks. I look back at the dates that the book was being written and remember what was happening in our own lives at that time and recognise how much more I understand about life after death than I did before August 2019.

‘That’s what I found the hardest,’ admits Morgan, still golden gorgeous in the glow of the mirror lights. ‘Never getting to say goodbye to anyone properly. But there are ways you can. Love lingers. It’s still there, even if you’re not.’

I can’t say whether this book is for you, but I want to say a huge thank you to Louise Beech for her gesture, and for following her own heart and passion, for she too, like the protagonist, is a lover of theatre, an usher and a girl with a few screenplays in her top drawer that I hope one day, like Chloe’s, will make it onto the stage.

Written from the heart, it brings the stage alive, igniting the imagination of those with a passion for theatre, whether from the front mezzanine seats or in the spotlight. It would make an excellent theatre piece.

Lest We Forget

“I’m still here; I am dust.

I’m those fragments in the air,

the gold light dancing there,

that breeze from nowhere.”

Dust – the musical

Further Reading

My review of How To Be Brave

My review of Louise Beech’s The Mountain in My Shoe

My review of Louise Beech’s Maria in the Moon

Buy a Copy of I Am Dust via Book Depository

I don’t know why, but today something nudged me to write a few words about a book I have just finished reading. The first time I have had anything noteworthy to say about a work of fiction since August 2019.

I also have a couple of reviews I wrote in August, that I hadn’t posted yet, part of Women in Translation month that I will share belatedly. All coming soon…

It was the debut novel of Iranian author Shokoofeh Azar, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. It won’t be for everyone, as it’s written in a lyrical magical realist style, narrated by the spirit of a thirteen year old girl whose family flees Tehran during the Islamic Revolution.

Europa Editions, one of my favourite publishers, describes it in this way:

From the pen of one of Iran’s rising literary stars, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a story about the unbreakable connection between the living and the dead, and about the way a nation’s shared trauma shapes its national and personal narratives.

It speaks of the power of imagination when confronted with cruelty, and of our human need to make sense of the world through the ritual of storytelling itself.

That power of imagination and the use of storytelling to express something in another form, whether its verbal, written or visual, to make sense of how someone views the world around them was something very close to my heart, almost overwhelming, as I too struggle to make sense of it, yet appreciate the gift.

Allia Jen

I haven’t published anything here nor felt like reading or even thinking about storytelling, because in mid August my 17-year-old daughter Allia Jen passed away suddenly, without warning. And as you might imagine, something like that, changes something in us.

Though she was very young, she had already lived an extraordinary life, with both significant challenges and immense joys. And though it is little recompense, we have a bulging suitcase of her drawings and artwork, which she worked on and created prolifically – literally – as if there were no tomorrow. Though she didn’t quite make it to her 18th birthday and the independence she was so looking forward to, I am somehow comforted by the knowledge that in the belief system of her paternal culture, she is considered a Bird of Paradise, granted direct passage into Paradise.

I can’t write about reading without first acknowledging this personal loss, as something new begins to blossom and I begin writing again. I am working on a new project I hope to finish this year and I have the intention to visit here from time to time, sharing what I’m reading, and if not here, at the very least on Goodreads.

I Am Dust

In the first of so many I still owe thank you’s to, I would like to say a heart-felt public thank you to a woman who makes magic with words, author Louise Beech, whom I first connected with while spending 10 days in Timone hospital with Allia as she recovered from a successful but distressing operation to correct a curvature of the spine.

I was reading Louise’s incredible, unforgettable debut novel How To Be Brave inspired by her journey with her daughter and a Type 1 diabetic diagnosis (something we shared as mothers). We have stayed in touch ever since and she has written many more excellent, unputdownable novels.

Her latest novel, which I urge you all to read and share, is out now as an e-book but due for printed publication on 16 April 2020. Set in a haunted theatre ‘I Am Dust begins with an amazing poem written by Louise’s daughter Katy and the following generous, kind and much appreciated dedication:

This is dedicated to the people

who pick up the glitter.

And to a girl who was glitter: Allia

Jen Yousef, or simply Jen.

I’ll now have to wait until after

the dust settles

to finally meet you.

I leave you with a few of my favourite pictures Allia drew, all of which are semi-self portraits and encapsulate something of her essence. She is in a good place now and has reversed our roles, I feel her presence around me constantly and will always be inspired by what she taught me in her short life.

I guess she’s telling me to get on with some of the things I’ve been neglecting, just as she would have done, by awakening the inspiration to want to share again.

Thank you for your kind thoughts.

Claire