The Talking Drum

The Talking Drum by Lisa Braxton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to the publisher, Inanna Publications, for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Gist

An ensemble of characters provides diverse and individualized perspectives on life in a neighbourhood that is deemed unimportant by the “higher” social strata.

Each chapter tells the overall story of displacement, personal and interpersonal struggle, and gentrification through the eyes of one of several main characters. Each one is in one way or another connected with the other characters in the story to varying degrees.

The Details

What struck me most was the author’s skill in portraying the characters, and I’m not only talking about the main characters, but also the secondary and even tertiary characters with so much care and dedication.

The one word that keeps popping into mind whenever I think about this amazing story is “rich”.

The characters, the story, the narration. Everything has a richness to it that makes reading it such a rewarding and almost personal experience.

I could tell that the author created each character with a lot of love for the craft. Most of the time we read a story with a strong protagonist and it works well enough, but the secondary characters are only thrown in to help out the protagonist in some way.

In The Talking Drum each character, regardless of how small their presence in the story, has their own purpose. The reader can sense and understand that this person, although we may only get a glimpse of them in the story, has their own life.

Writing a story of so much substance is a wonderful accomplishment and greatly adds to the reader’s enjoyment.

The same can be said about the general narration. The description of places, of the food, the colours, even the weather all add to that special experience. It felt as if I was standing right behind the character, inside the story, seeing, hearing, smelling what they are experiencing.

It made my skin tingle. I felt present and involved.

I appreciated the way the various issues were addressed in the story. How the characters told of their struggle through their actions, thoughts and emotions.

The writing was superb. It was easy to follow and even easier to get lost within the pages of the story.

The Verdict

Overall, I loved this story. I am so grateful this book was brought to my attention. I would absolutely recommend it.

About the Author

Lisa Braxton is an Emmy-nominated former television journalist, an essayist, short story writer, and novelist. She is a fellow of the Kimbilio Fiction Writers Program and was a finalist in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University, her M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University, and her B.A. in Mass Media from Hampton University. Her stories have been published in anthologies and literary journals. She lives in the Boston, Massachusetts area.