Life on the streets can get sticky, and this is a litter-strewn hot mess of a story. Moses McKenzie’s debut novel, set in his home town of Bristol, follows dream-chasing Sayon Hughes as he hustles to save enough money to fulfil a fanciful ambition and buy “the house-atop-the-hill” in Clifton. It’s a dream that at times feels as futile as Lennie’s ambition in Of Mice and Men to live off the fat of the land and tend to rabbits.
An Olive Grove in Ends is a celebration of community, from domino-playing uncles to drug-addled down-and-outs, the inhabitants of a city on the brink of change. The action moves from Bristol’s St Paul’s neighbourhood to Stapleton Road (“Stapes”), where the struggle is between crime and legitimacy, staying out of trouble and getting caught. It’s a landscape enlivened by the police lurking, ready to pounce, and gentrification knocking on the door.
