Feels Like Poetry: Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water

“‘You two are in something. I don’t know what it is, but you guys are in something. Some people call it a relationship, some call it friendship, some call it love, but you two, you two are in something.’

You gazed at each other then with the same open-eyed wonder that keeps startling you at various intervals since you met. The two of you, like headphone wires tangling, caught up in this something. A happy accident. A messy miracle.”

from Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel Open Water glistens with poetic prose as it traces a Black British couple’s intimate, tender, and creative relationship after their first meeting in a London pub. We trace their story as it evolves over time, from a friendship between artists with hushed desires, to a couple falling in love with one another, and to the outward tensions and experiences that irreversibly alter their relationship. While this is a love story, it discusses and challenges notions of masculinity and vulnerability, and confronts the fear and violence that stems from living in a society that refuses to truly see you or acknowledge you.

Written in the second person, we slip into the narrative from the opening lines of the prologue as the ‘you’ draws us into the story as both a reader and a protagonist. It is confronting and perhaps jarring at first since we don’t come across many novels written from this point of view, but it adds such an intimate dimension to the male character’s relationships, emotions, memories, and experiences. We sit with him in moments of grief as he cries and lingers in his sadness instead of turning away from it, and we witness desire and love as he tries and tries to capture his feelings in writing. These visceral emotions and experiences also translate to the pain, trauma, and loss of being seen as but a Black body by a society that does not recognize you, but looks to you with a suspicious, skeptical, and aggressive eye. Nelson has such a compelling and skillful hold of the narration throughout the novel, making every emotion and emotional response that much more immediate and palpable.

The novel is woven and laced with references that celebrate Black art and creativity, through songs and albums, such as Michael Kiwanuka’s “Piano Joint”; with artists, such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Sola Olulode; and with written works, such as Zadie Smith’s NW. Each of these add an aural and visual experience to the novel, allowing it to reach beyond the written word and to envelop us in a multi-dimensional artistic experience that is creative and unique to Open Water and to its love story.

Nelson’s novel is such an exciting debut. Once you dip your toe into the writing, you can’t help but surrender to the exquisite poetic voice, and succumb to the love between its characters—Open Water is a lyrical and rhythmic work that you comfortably sink into and miss when it is over.