Book Of The Month: The Story about Rene

“The Story about Rene”: Keeping the true nature of this book, based exclusively on real facts of real characters

This is a special book for the ones that are mesmerized by the customs of another type of communities, much more different from their own. Even if you never felt the need of finding out about how other people live and how their life is going on, this book may rise in you an interest you never knew you had. It is based only of real facts and real characters, but compared to a history book, “The Story about Rene” gives a more intimate insight of things. Details and aspects which no historian could tell better than the person who lived and witnessed them.

The book reflects an aspect very sensitive for him, this being the story of his mother. A fact that is even more disturbing is that this book has been written from fugitive memories and based more on telling of relatives about his mother. The author’s lack on memories about his mother is because she left, due to a tumultuous marriage with his father, to England. He never had a chance of seeing her again until full-grown up and upon finding her in England. Only after she passed away, the author felt the need to tell the world her story, the legacy of his family and how things happened back then.

A special flair is given to the book because the action takes place in Kalapaluwawa, a small village near Colombo, in Sri Lanka. As the place suggests it, the families in this geographical area have very different customs compared to the family type we are used to. Even if it was a Portuguese and then an English colony, life in Sri Lanka kept some of its unique ways of doing things. Through his book, the authors give a full insight of what a family meant there. The challenges that appear in every family, how they choose to deal with them and how it was to grow in a family with only your father, brothers and some close relatives.

The book starts in a very interesting manner, managing to capture the reader’s attention by presenting the customs of that place, a bit of history and how families were being composed. The author also chose to add to the style in which he wrote special words, used only by that community, adding up to the close up feeling. This way, making sure that every reader will feel exactly how things used to go by, back in those times and in that particular area. There are very few books that manage to redeem, with details so beautifully placed, the inner life of a certain community.

Of course, besides all these aspects, the author is also trying to put together the image of this mother. Why she left, what were her reasons, how her trip to England might have been? He tried to answer these questions, and many more, with the help of his mother’s relatives, which provided a great deal of information as support for the creation of this book. Where gaps filled in the story, the author admitted having let in some fantastic scenarios, as he imagines, with mentioning the fact that a reader will be announced when and how much will this happen. Thus, keeping the true nature of this book, based exclusively on real facts of real characters. So, this book represents a good rate of a reality that took place in different times and different places.

The Story about Rene is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1770764313