The novel, through the boys’ interactions with their parents, filters carefully the political situation of Ceylon through its precise temporal setting, a moment of deep political crisis with many contemporary echoes. By contrast, Jay’s family is landed gentry – his uncle runs an estate in the countryside and his father is a businessman.
Kairo’s mother works for Radio Ceylon his father is an ardent socialist. Gunesekera compares and contrasts both families in relation to their different politics. Jay’s family is about to break up Kairo’s parents too lead parallel lives. The novel also deals touchingly with the precarious fracturing of families. There are, for example, the relations of their parents and the social circles they frequent. And while the friendship between the two is the beating heart of the novel, it develops a series of concentric circles.
They both go on adventures together, have a vacation at Jay’s uncle Elvin’s estate in the countryside, seeking out other ways of educating themselves. Kairo becomes invested in Jay’s life, as he discovers and starts to share Jay’s love for the natural world. The novel is focused on Jay and Kairo’s growing friendship, their relationships with their parents, and their extra-curricular activities as their schooling is interrupted by a political crisis and upheaval. It is the story of two adolescents, Kairo and Jay, growing up in Colombo in 1964. He also has a knack to draw the reader into the confidences of his characters, and this is also very much in evidence in Suncatcher, his latest novel. Characterised by their precise and acute observations, Gunesekera is a masterful storyteller especially in the way in which he creates landscapes and environments, be they urban or rural, internal or external, natural or man-made. I first encountered Romesh Gunesekera’s work back in 1999 when he gave a reading from his short story collection Monkfish Moon. ‘I am always writing a novel’: In Conversation with Romesh Gunesekera
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