by Dinaw Mengestu
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Sepha Stephanos is stuck in time. He’s stuck back in Ethiopia, huddled in the corner with his brother, watching his father being beaten by revolutionaries during the Red Terror. He flees to America, but his life in the “land of opportunity” is merely a dream --- not a nightmare, not a hopeful reverie --- but a mundane existence free of any ambition or disillusion, full only of fond memories of his father. “How was I supposed to live in America when I had never really left Ethiopia? I wasn’t, I decided. I wasn’t supposed to live here at all.” Instead he lives a solitary existence behind a convenience store counter and inside a dilapidated house in a run down neighborhood of Washington D.C.

Sepha has two friends, both representing different facets of immigration. Kenneth dons his suit and tie daily, having worked himself up from hotel employee to engineer. He “takes one for the team” by working Christmas Day, allowing his American coworkers to celebrate with their families. Joseph, on the other hand, is a waiter who drinks the alcohol left on tables, straight from the glasses of his unknown patrons. Joseph is a romantic, perfecting words of poetry, and relating everything in life back to Africa; unable, as Sepha, to come to terms with his American existence. Sepha, Kenneth and Joseph are “sons of the revolution,” men without fathers or homeland, heads as full of dictators and coups as those of Americans are full of big-name celebrities and blockbuster hits.

Sepha’s desire for invisibility is challenged when a white woman moves in next door with her biracial daughter. Suddenly his store seems dirty and his home seems run down. He notices his balding head and his nonexistent college education. To further complicate matters, his neighborhood is embarking on its own revolution --- a changing climate that threatens the ousting of all present tenants for the sake of revitalization. Will he awaken from his dream in time to maintain the life he has created for himself, or is it ultimately impossible to trade one country for another?

THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS is Dinaw Mengestu’s first novel, and it is a story of which he has personal interest, as he and his family left Ethiopia shortly after the Red Terror when he was just a boy. He recently gave a reading in Seattle, Washington, to a room filled with Americans and Ethiopians alike. The Americans were no doubt drawn to the beauty of the story, to the fluidity of the prose and the humanity of the protagonist. The Ethiopians in the room were understandably thankful for this telling of their recent history, and for a voice of a highly voiceless topic, in the land that they too are trying to embrace.

Mengestu’s voice brought the character to even greater life as he read of Sepha’s final experience with his father and the revolutionaries. The author stood behind the podium in a white shirt and sport coat, with blue jeans scarcely hiding his “Ethiopianesque” stick-like legs, and his hair in dread locks which were haphazardly crowning his head. His voice was soft, slow enough to carry the weight of the story, and we in the room sat mesmerized. We all seemed to carry the same question in our breasts, and that is, where does one go from here? When a writer has told the intimate story of his family and country, even when fictionalized, how can it be matched by any subsequent story? Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this author can pull it off, and I look forward to reading his next (as of yet undisclosed) body of work. Mengestu has both the humility and the grandeur of a successful writer, and we at the reading seemed to all feel as though we were in the presence of a highly talented friend.

Book Review Copyright © 2007 Shannon Luders-Manuel