Other Names, Other Places

LoveReading Says

Following a woman’s coming-of-age journey from childhood to her unravelling of pivotal truths about her past as an adult, Ola Mustapha’s Other Names, Other Places possesses all the page-turning pull of a mystery.

Nessie’s voice is utterly enthralling — clear, commanding, and laced with tension from the moment we meet her as a child, newly arrived in London from Tunisia, forever feeling that she was neither white enough, nor African enough: “Life had been hard since we moved to England. Hard and exhausting. I was constantly in trouble. People were always angry with me. Without being able to articulate it, I knew I was liked by most adults in Tunisia and disliked by most in England”. 

Into Nessie’s split existence, and into the dysfunctional dynamics of her family, her parents befriend the enigmatic Mrs Brown, to whom much of the novel is addressed. Mrs Brown’s abrupt disappearance comes as a shock. “She’s gone away,” her father explains. “She doesn’t want to know us anymore”, and Nessie becomes aware that “Our lives might have taken a different turn if you hadn’t vanished”.

Years later, Nessie moves to Japan, where she struggles with a fresh bout of feeling out of place as long-buried truths to come light.

Refreshing and surprising, suspenseful and steeped in secrets, Other Names, Other Places had me in its thrall. 

Joanne Owen

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