We Are Called to Rise is one of those books that demand to be read all in one go. Once I started there was no stopping. I barely came up for air. It was compelling and engaging from the very first page – I guess it helped that Avis, a woman of a certain age, rooting in her sexy underwear draw, comes up with a gun.
But this novel is about much more than Avis, her underwear or guns. It is about three lives, three families colliding, bound together by a mistake made in a just a split second. It is about the fate of a clever, sensitive child.
So why did I love We Are Called to Rise, so much? Here are some of the reasons:
It’s rooted in place, in Las Vegas, the author’s home town, the town it would be impossible for me to know from any tourist guide or holiday visit. Mc Bride shows us what this desert place is really like for the people who grow up there, who live there. We feel the heat and the dust.
We Are Called to Rise, is brave in its scope and its portrayal of marginalised lives, the ageing woman whose marriage is crumbling, the Albanian family struggling to survive, veterans returning from Iraq. McBride’s reach is both domestic, dealing with relationships and family – the child at school, as well as global, exploring the brutal consequences of war and the children who ‘come back with the war deep within them.’
For me, McBride’s sensitive rendering of Bashkim, the 4 th grade Albanian immigrant trying desperately not to be different – is a triumph. I cared deeply about what would happen to him. Laura Mcbride knows how to create characters that seep under your skin and she knows how everything matters. Above all I love the recognition of small acts of kindness – touching the lonely, teaching the child, wiping away a tear – these things matter she tells us.
I believe they do, in McBride’s words, ‘What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.’
Highly recommended – We Are Called to Rise, available HERE
