My cousin Winnie called the street itself home. She slept on the Baptist church steps and begged cigarette stubs from the gutter. She said she found the gutter more giving than the people passing, but maybe the people passing had nutun left to give. To everything there may have been a season, but some things remained unchanged and I wouldn’t rest until I owned that house-atop-the-hill.

An Olive Grove in Ends: The dazzling debut novel about love An Olive Grove in Ends: The dazzling debut novel about love

I was actually in the Library when the cover of this book caught my eye. As it sat in the window, I was It’s a novel about class and status as well as race and religion: this covers a great deal of socio-political scope. Was this the intention? A remarkable debut, bristling with sharp prose and daring originality’ Nathan Harris, author of THE SWEETNESS OF WATERAnd some of the writing, especially when we are meant to understand the jeopardy of Sayon’s position, would not be out of place in a pre GCSE creative writing exercise with too much of a tell-not-show style and some rather clunky formulations.

Clients | The Ampersand Agency Moses McKenzie | Clients | The Ampersand Agency

Aunty Paulette was my mama’s younger sister and she had spent much of her life inside. She wore a fistful of gold rings and one of them chains from Claire’s with the letter ‘P’ in bold italics. Her favourite thing to do was to jam her finger into older men’s chests and tell them that she was twice the man they were. You know man’s gonna live here someday, cuz,’ I announced. Cuba screwed his face; he didn’t mean to doubt me, but he wasn’t accustomed to dreams. ‘How you gonna buy dis yard, akh? You need white people ps to buy dis – big man ting.’ ‘Don’t watch dat,’ I told him. ‘Man’ll find a way, truss me.’So, I started writing prose in 2017. Before that I’d write song lyrics, and I wrote three manuscripts before I wrote An Olive Grove in Ends. Yes, three manuscripts and then a screenplay. And they were all of varying quality; the premises had varying ideas, some of them good, some of them bad. And then some of them were poorly executed. All of them were poorly executed! But yeah, then I wrote An Olive Grove in Ends in 2019. The road was patrolled by young and old: abtis arranged tables outside cafés, serving tea from pans; they peered into the faces of young hijabis, trying to find a likeness and match daughter to hooyo. Their sons and nephews stood outside corner shops and met at park benches, and together with my cousins, they were watched by the disapproving eyes of our respective elders. Here by contrast, and as an example of the vibrant writing which categories this novel, and particularly its beginning is how the same “Stapes” area is described here: A young man has dreams of buying a house at the top of a "bad" part of Bristol, rapidly being gentrified, where he has just committed a murder, and ostensibly, just seen one the following day-- causing events, and his dreams, to spiral beyond his control.

An Olive Grove in Ends Interview: Moses McKenzie – An Olive Grove in Ends

There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’Somewhat, yes, it talks about religion and family. The town is referred to as Ends. Since the novel is full of religious imagery, I found in Revelation 11:4, there are two olive trees that symbolize the Holy Spirit's endless supply of anointing. Plus, there’s an olive grove with the family’s lineage painted in the front of the book, too.