The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

Synopsis
Two children trapped in the same attic, almost a century apart, bound by a secret.

1907: Twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of his time locked in an attic room of a large house by the sea. Taken from his homeland and treated as an unpaid servant, he dreams of his family in Africa even if, as the years pass, he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name . . .

Decades later, Lowra, a young orphan girl born into wealth and privilege, will find herself banished to the same attic. Lying under the floorboards of the room is an old porcelain doll, an unusual beaded claw necklace and, most curiously, a sentence etched on the wall behind an old cupboard, written in an unidentifiable language. Artefacts that will offer her a strange kind of comfort, and lead her to believe that she was not the first child to be imprisoned there . . .

Review
Every now and then a book comes into your life that really gets under the skin and into your heart, and for me The Attic Child by Lola Jaye is one of those books. With a split timeline the book is narrated by Dikembe in 1903, and Lowra in 1993, two very different characters who share the same secret of being locked in an attic. Although nearly one hundred years apart, Lowra feels a kinship and comfort to the person imprisoned before her after she finds a doll, necklace and some writing left by Dikembe. Whilst Lola Jaye brings the stories of Dikembe and and Lowre slowly to life, what seems two disparate stories begin to merge together in this stunning, and heartbreaking novel.

I am so glad that I was invited to be part of the blog tour for The Attic Child, as it is a book that I will never forget. With the world we are living in today, this is an important and powerful read, as it looks at the effects of colonialism, the wrongs that were done by the British and other countries and the continued debate around the removal of statues to those associated with the slave trade and, in Dikembe’s case, child trafficking. In Dikembe’s story I was horrified and distressed at points of how her was treated, in one case as a companion and human artefact to show off, to a slave who is locked in an attic and treated with distain. The fact that a young boy could be torn away from his family with no care for his feelings and taken to another country as a possesssion, and change his name is abhorrent, and broke my heart. However, I did admire his strength of character, how he survived this awful treatment at the hands of others.

Lowra’s story is also shocking and heartbreaking. At eleven years old she is orphaned and her stepmother locks her in the attic as punishment. After the death of her stepmother, Lowra has to return to the house and face her demons. It is finding of the necklace, doll and writings that send her on her journey to find out more about Dikembe, or Celestine as he became to known. Her search brings her into contact with Monty, an expert in African History, and through him we see that the unjustice of what happened in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century still has an effect today; Monty,a balck man is treated very differently in certain circumstances to Lowra, a white woman.

Lola Jaye’s writing is beautiful, even when writing some of the most disturbing parts of the book. Her knowledge of this period in history shines through in her depiction of the attitudes of the British at this time, and how over the the twentieth century, attitudes slowly began to change, and there were more opportunities for black men and women; but still today there are still hurdles that need to be overcome.

The Attic Child is a powerful read and one I highly recommend. I think it is an important read, and Lola Jaye tackles many of the issues that are important today, and deals with them in an empathetic way that really made me think. There is no getting away from the fact that this book includes acts of child cruely that are shocking, but it is the strength of Lowra and Dikembe that shine through. This book touched my soul and heart, and I don’t think I will ever forget the story of Dikembe. Such an inspiring and amazing read from Lola Jaye, so I’m off to look at her other books.

I would like to thank Pan Macmillan and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of the blog tour for The Attic Child in return for my honest review.