The worth of something as delicious as Shani Mootoo’s novel, Cereus Blooms at Night, would be hard to overestimate. I’ve honestly never read anything that had such a sensory effect on me: the lilting rhythm of the language, the bittersweetness of the narrative twists, everything about this novel felt so visceral. Amazingly, Cereus Blooms at Night is Mootoo’s first novel, but you would never guess; the writing as well as the plot is so richly and confidently woven. An Indo-Trinidadian-Canadian author, Mootoo sets her novel in the fictionalized island Lantanacamara—clearly a stand-in for Trinidad—and the luscious environment of the island is really a character unto itself. The dripping gorgeousness of the buzzing insects, blooming trees, and vibrant flowers—especially the central image of the illusive cereus flower—are imprinted on my mind. That said, the people in this novel—most of them queer—are as unforgettable as the tongue-twisting fictional name of the setting. Our narrator is the precocious nurse Tyler, a fighting spirit of a feminine man (or a trans woman? the text is uninterested in such labels) who works at an Alms house and is the caretaker of a mysterious elderly woman, Miss Ramchandin, who has quite the history in this small town ironically called Paradise. Gradually this woman’s heart-breaking story, a difficult and complex one in which colonization, misogyny, and homophobia have all wrecked havoc on her life, is told to us through the eyes of the sympathetic and endearing Tyler. His/her story begins to intertwine with Miss Ramchandin’s when an important person from her past and his son come to visit and a romance blossoms between the two younger folks. This queer romance is mirrored by a lesbian one (see if you can guess it coming!) that occurs in Miss Ramchandin’s past. Both are beautifully drawn and emerge all the more powerfully in juxtaposition to some of the truly horrific violence the novel depicts. While this message, one that insists on the intersectionality and interrelatedness of oppressions such as racism and homophobia, is important, it is rather with a sweet message of hope—that a clipping of “cereus will surely bloom within days”—that the novel ends. Queerness in the novel, also, begins to emerge not as a an obstacle which one must overcome but something from which characters such as Tyler draw strength and through which they are able to make connections with others. I can’t recommend Cereus Blooms at Night highly enough: instead of eating a meal of coconut curry or dessert of mango ice cream, read this! It’s just as satisfying and perhaps the taste will linger with you a little longer.
