Blood Kin (2007) is the hugely impressive debut novel of Sydney author Ceridwen Dovey, whose fiction I discovered when I recently read and reviewed In the Garden of the Fugitives (2018). And it's not just me who's impressed: Blood Kin was published in 15 countries, and shortlisted for the 2007 Dylan Thomas Prize. Dovey was also selected for the 2009 US National Book Foundation's '5 under 35' honours list, and the Wall Street Journal named her as one of their ‘artists to watch.’ I see also from Dovey's website that Blood Kin has been adapted for stage in Germany and I'm not surprised. It would make an excellent film too.

Set in an unnamed country which hints at Latin America, Blood Kin is about power, and how even a small taste of it arouses the worst human instincts. The book (an economical 185 pages) is in three parts, narrated in first person by six unnamed characters:

• Part I: the three men taken into custody after a coup: the President's portraitist; the President's barber; and the President's chef;


• Part II: three women connected with the three men (in ways more than they know): the barber's brother's fiancée; the chef's daughter; and the portraitist's wife;


• Part III: the aftermath: the barber; the portraitist and finally the chef.

The three men take to their detention in different ways, depending on the power they can wield. The new Commander shows his power by treating them well: he has plans for them all. So, surprisingly, they share the luxury of the guestrooms of the President's Summer Residence, and though the food is rudimentary they are fed twice daily.

But the terror of the coup is obvious: the sous-chef was shot because he tried to escape. The chef, however, adapts quickly to cooking gourmet delicacies for the Commander who has taken over. Even in this situation the chef has power: of course they can search him for dangerous implements and they can supervise his cooking, but just as he knows how to prevent food poisoning he knows how to cause it too, undetected...

The barber has reason to support the coup because his brother was shot under the President's regime. He had, in fact, inveigled his way into the President's employ to avenge his brother. Barbers, after all, with their scissors and razors, have every man they serve temporarily in their power... but this one creates trust by insinuating a little sensuality into what is an intimate procedure. He wanted to lull the President into a false sense of security but each day he could not find the will to slit his throat.

Both the chef and the barber can only exercise their power at some risk to themselves.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/09/29/blood-kin-by-ceridwen-dovey/ ( )

Excellent. A tale of the peripheral actors in a coup, and of how things change yet stay the same. ( )

Following the aftermath of a coup in an unnamed country, the chef, portraitist and barber of the deposed President are held captive in the ex President’s summer retreat. None of the characters are named; they are all titled by their links with the main protagonists. Each chapter follows the thoughts of the characters as they bounce between the predicaments they find themselves in and their past. Gradually others are drawn into the mix, the chef’s daughter, the barber’s brother’s lover, the Portraitists’ wife. Their lives are entwined in ways they do not comprehend until the shocking end of the book.
No one comes out of this unscathed. They are all victims of their own and others faults. Hubris, venality, greed, and lust, they all get a run. Are the revolutionaries any better that the despised deposed leader? What do you think? Experience tells us not to expect too much and you won’t be disappointed. ( )

It's hard to imagine a book about a political coup being sensual, exotic, beautiful and terrifying at the same time, but that is just what this book is. It follows three prisoners of a coup d'état, the former President's portraitist, his chef and his barber. Each character, both near and far to the center of power will draw the reader into his most personal details, his hopes and dreams, his past and present to create a complex web of what seems at first a harmless existence only to reveal in the end the true nature of power. This one is not only well written, its unique. ( )

A weird, creepy little book.
I won't say what it's about, because for me the best part was discovering that.
Afterwards, it wasn't as interesting. ( )