JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Amanda Smyth’s Look At You: A novel in stories on the margins of belonging

by

Ira Mathur
17 days ago
20250622

IRA MATH­UR

Aman­da Smyth writes be­tween is­lands. Born in Ire­land to a Trinida­di­an moth­er and Irish fa­ther, she be­longs to both places—and nei­ther en­tire­ly. Now based in Leam­ing­ton Spa, she teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at Ar­von, Sky­ros in Greece, and Coven­try Uni­ver­si­ty.

Smyth’s de­but, Black Rock (Ser­pants Tail 2009), set in 1950s Trinidad, won the Prix du Pre­mier Ro­man Étranger, was an Oprah Sum­mer Read, and re­ceived nom­i­na­tions for the NAACP Im­age Award and the McKit­t­er­ick Prize. For­tune (Peepal Tree Press 2021), which takes place dur­ing Trinidad’s oil boom, was short­list­ed for the Wal­ter Scott Prize for His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion.

Smyth’s new book, Look At You, (Peepal Tree Press 2025) is a nov­el in sto­ries. A girl moves be­tween Trinidad, Eng­land, and Ire­land, try­ing to un­der­stand where she fits, and how to stay up­right in a fam­i­ly split down in­vis­i­ble lines.

The sto­ries linger in mo­ments of wait­ing, in what re­mains un­said. The prose is de­lib­er­ate­ly spare and at­ten­tive, hold­ing ten­sion in the paus­es and si­lences. Smyth writes “to un­der­stand what I think and feel”. Writ­ing, she says, gives back what you give it.

Each sto­ry reads like a held breath.

Claire Adam calls it “del­i­cate, beau­ti­ful, in­tense­ly mov­ing. Her best yet”. Chloe Arid­jis writes: “Through a suc­ces­sion of vi­gnettes that qui­et­ly build and blos­som, Aman­da Smyth has cre­at­ed a mar­vel­lous ta­pes­try of a nov­el.” Paul Mur­ray calls it “hyp­not­ic and heart­break­ing”. Monique Rof­fey: “A re­mark­able nov­el. I loved it.”

Smyth has writ­ten all her life. “Par­tic­u­lar­ly when I was younger, and my heart was tan­gled up in places I couldn’t fig­ure out.” Jour­nals turned in­to po­ems, and po­ems in­to sto­ries. She writes when some­thing “det­o­nates” in­side her and al­so when noth­ing seems to hap­pen at all.

Smyth’s process is slow, de­lib­er­ate. “I pro­cras­ti­nate. I check the laun­dry. I stare in­side the fridge.” She re­mem­bers Wayne Brown’s writ­ing ses­sions in Nor­mandie, where even the great paus­es—food, walk­ing, si­lence—formed part of the rhythm. “There was al­ways a dis­cus­sion about di­et or what we’d all been eat­ing—the fridge. Who was walk­ing, who was need­ing to walk. It made me laugh, but it was true.”

Now, she writes in what she calls her “lit­tle writ­ing cave”, a small room with a heater on and the lamp al­ways lit. “Here, I en­joy get­ting lost for a few hours.”

The fol­low­ing ex­cerpt from Aman­da Smyth’s Look At You is pub­lished with per­mis­sion of the au­thor and Peepal Tree Press. It cap­tures the at­mos­pher­ic clar­i­ty of Smyth’s work, where mem­o­ry, place, and voice come to­geth­er in prose that nei­ther strains nor ex­plains.

EX­CERPT FROM LOOK AT YOU

Used with per­mis­sion of the au­thor and Peepal Tree Press.

“I liked to watch her face break­ing through the sur­face in the pool—the big blue pool at the club where I played every day dur­ing sum­mer hol­i­days. He­le­na, my grand­moth­er’s helper, sat be­neath the coloured para­sol while I swam with my broth­er, Si­mon, and the oth­er chil­dren who lived on the re­fin­ery camp: swam, ran about on the hot con­crete, and threw coins in the wa­ter and dived down to find them, and jumped from the tall div­ing board.

From there I could see the re­fin­ery, the burn­ing lilac flame. I could see the dark green places full of bam­boo bush­es. I could see the shim­mer­ing lake and the brown bank where the vul­tures made a black crowd. Be­fore we hit the wa­ter, we yelled out our names or the name of some­one fa­mous who we’d like to be. Some­times we screamed be­cause the div­ing board was a sky­scraper and the pool be­low a far­away city.

He­le­na would look up from her Bible and say, Stop that noise, be qui­et. And we’d stop for a while, but then some­one would throw a coin in­to the pool, or push some­one in, and we’d start shout­ing again. This would go on all day, un­til we were told to come for lunch or it was time to go home. By af­ter­noon, my skin was wrin­kled like an old per­son’s, not like a young girl’s at all.

I knew she was old­er, by at least three years. Most­ly, she sat in her or­ange biki­ni in a wrought-iron chair, her legs propped on an­oth­er, read­ing a book. Some­times she walked to the edge of the pool, made a steeple with her hands, and dived in. Or she swam to the oth­er side—or to the oth­er side and back again. But she nev­er stayed in the pool for long. If we were play­ing in the deep end, she swam in the shal­low. And if we were play­ing in the shal­low end, she swam where the wa­ter was deep.

Her name was Ann Sanchez. I would nev­er have spo­ken to her if I hadn’t found her neck­lace. I was look­ing for a ten cent piece when I saw it ly­ing on the grate at the bot­tom of the pool. I knew it didn’t be­long to any of us. When I held it up, it sparkled in the sun. Some­one said I should keep it. I didn’t know what to do. Si­mon thought I should ask He­le­na or take it home and ask our moth­er.

Then I saw her stand­ing by her chair. One hand made a shade over her eyes, the oth­er held on to her hip. Her skin shone like liquorice.

“Hold on a minute,” I said to the oth­ers, and climbed out of the wa­ter. She wrapped a tow­el around her waist and walked to­wards me. When I asked if the chain was hers, she looked in the cup of my hand and cocked her head like a bird.

“I’ve been look­ing for that for the longest while.”

Her voice was soft, tin­kling and gen­tle, like the voice of a stream if a stream could speak. When I dropped the chain in­to her hand, her full mouth sud­den­ly grew wide in a smile, and I thought how large her white teeth were. I was about to go back to the shal­low end when she asked where I was from.

When I told my moth­er I had met a girl called Ann at the pool, she asked, as they al­ways ask in Trinidad, if I knew the fam­i­ly name.

“Sanchez,” I said.

My moth­er and grand­moth­er spent the whole evening talk­ing about the Sanchez fam­i­ly they had known when my moth­er was a child.

So I heard about Mona with the Co­ca-Co­la fig­ure who won a com­pe­ti­tion for the most beau­ti­ful girl in south Trinidad. I heard about Mona’s un­cle, a teacher who nev­er got mar­ried. I heard about her fa­ther, who was killed in an au­to­mo­bile ac­ci­dent, and how her moth­er tried to kill her­self by hang­ing from a light fit­ting, but some­one heard the chair fall and the rope broke be­cause it was old and frayed. I heard about her moth­er’s lover who lived in Bar­ba­dos and how he took all her mon­ey and threw it away in a fast food restau­rant.

This is what hap­pens in Trinidad. You say one name and, next thing, they’re talk­ing about the fam­i­ly for hours.”

–End of Ex­cerpt

Smyth sees writ­ing as a kind of barter: what you sur­ren­der, it re­turns—if you’re lucky. That ex­change an­chors Look At You, a book marked by spare, watch­ful clar­i­ty.

Ira Math­ur is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, a Guardian Me­dia colum­nist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion.

Vis­it: www.iras­room.org | Email: iras­room@gmail.com


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored