I have rarely read a book written in the second person, especially when most of the time the “you” referred to is the unnamed narrator. This seemingly awkward approach was surprisingly effective. Somehow it resulted in an intensely personal storytelling device.
The narrator is a Black man living in London whose family is from Ghana. He is a photographer, or at least is agreeable to think of himself that way when others describe him as a photographer. He meets a woman who is a dancer and they are immediately drawn to each other; they are introduced by her boyfriend, his good friend, which complicates their connection. They become best friends, and though they are reluctant to admit their intense love for each other in fear of losing their friendship, they do become lovers. She is only in London when not in school in Dublin, another complication for their love. They have an intense summer together and have promised to be open with each other.
The narrator tells of his life as a Black man, looked at but not seen, in an affecting way. That phrase comes up multiple times, being “looked at but not seen.” The violence experienced by Black men he knows and his own encounters with the police make the narrator shut down. He stops responding to his girlfriend and even when she travels from Dublin to learn what the problem is, he cannot be open with her. The racism he experiences robs him of his ability to be a whole open human.
My limited experience reading novels using the second person has been that the “you” refers to someone other than the narrator. In one case a woman is talking about the “you” that is herself in the future. In one the narrator is speaking to a dog he comes to love, and in another to a camel, his only companion. And in another case use of the second person is an effort to move from making himself invisible when writing in the first person to a more revelatory method. Though it was confusing at first, I did find the use of the second person to be part of this author’s intense and personal manner of “making himself seen, not just looked at.”
The music referred to in the book was out of my experience, and while I know the name Kierkegaard, the philosopher he quotes, I know little else. He did write several times of NW by Zadie Smith, which refers to the area of London where she grew up. I do know that book and treasure it. There is so much in this book that I missed; nevertheless, I was moved by it.
Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water, Black Cat, 2021, 166 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.