Book Re­view

Ti­tle of Book: Just A Lit­tle Longer

Au­thor’s Name: Veron­i­ca Ra­jahram

Pub­lish­er: Mid­dle­town, DE(USA) 2002. 165p

Veron­i­ca Ra­jahram, just 20, has burst up­on the lit­er­ary fo­rum with an im­pres­sive Young Adult (YA) nov­el—Just A Lit­tle Longer. This re­mark­able break­out la­dy hails from Bas­ta Hall vil­lage in Cou­va. One of the vin­tage-best writ­ers of our na­tion al­so had his nur­tur­ing in Bas­ta Hall, he is Willi Chen. Maybe, folk­lore will al­low light­ning to strike twice in the same place! And Bas­ta Hall could be­come a “go-to place” for our dilet­tante lit­er­ary posers.

Ra­jahram’s sec­ondary tu­ition was in the halls of Holy Faith Con­vent in Cou­va. Mod­est but con­fi­dent, she ex­pressed the wish to be a den­tist. I took some time to chew on this one.

But Ra­jahram proves that she has the pedi­gree to ab­sorb pain; pain to trot out a re­al­is­tic fic­tion nov­el that spans a pe­ri­od from Sep­tem­ber 2008 to De­cem­ber 2021. A sto­ry that runs its course—from a pro­gres­sive de­scent of a well-knit fam­i­ly of three, Joe Ken­neth, his wife, Jen­nifer, and their on­ly daugh­ter, Sab­ri­na Ken­neth—in­to a dark, evil hell of tor­ture, ten­sion, anx­i­ety, al­co­holism, men­tal health de­cay and “cut­ting”, over­dos­ing with pills etc and etc, amen!

Look at how she draws you in­to her nar­ra­tive in the very first chap­ter:

Veronica Rajahram

“I usu­al­ly dress in hip­ster-styled out­fits these days. Let’s just say I dress like life mat­ters. Life was ac­tu­al­ly great for me but this wasn’t al­ways so. In fact, I suf­fered. I suf­fered while I walked through my own per­son­al hell.”

The writer draws you in from the start. She pref­aces you with the prob­lem—so you are ap­prised. Then as the “I, me” nar­ra­tive telling, you are wit­ness to the de­scent in­to a sto­ry that has ten­sion, sus­pense, near tick-tock elec­tri­fy­ing mo­ments. All su­perbly craft­ed and with am­ple dis­pen­sa­tion of cred­i­ble di­a­logue that is as patent­ly re­al as any­thing you’ve read be­fore, ex­cept its Sab­ri­na’s re­port­ing.

Wit­ness this: “Your busi­ness is go­ing down­hill and so is our fam­i­ly. What are we gonna cook to­mor­row huh? Where’s our next meal com­ing from?” shout­ed mom. Then dad would shout back: “I am try­ing my best with this fam­i­ly and this is the thanks I get for try­ing to put food on our ta­ble?”

Shades of Au­gust Wil­son’s play, “Fences”. But the angst in the kitchen di­a­logue is as rasp­ing as the events that lat­er lead up to both moth­er and Sab­ri­na hav­ing to lit­er­al­ly run for cov­er when the fa­ther locks them out of the home and they made a get­away that has its own pow­er­ful thrill—al­beit it was for a turn—a break­ing point in the nar­ra­tive.

Ra­jahram’s use of jour­nal­ing is very ev­i­dent as the nar­ra­tive un­folds. The read­er gets the full im­pact of the blows. It’s how she puts down her thoughts and feel­ings—so as the char­ac­ter, she can un­der­stand them more clear­ly. The au­thor shows how Sab­ri­na can con­trol her re­spons­es—her health and emo­tions are con­trolled.

These days, teenagers are dis­mayed and chal­lenged more than ever.

So, in Just A Lit­tle Longer, there is a bit of grief and guilt. We see how Sab­ri­na grap­ples with parental angst and hurt. She her­self was phys­i­cal­ly bro­ken and shat­tered and was tee­ter­ing at death’s door­way. But the will to live was the sav­ing grace on of­fer—and she con­scious­ly held on to it.

As a new voice, Ra­jahram has been prepar­ing for Just A Lit­tle Longer.

In us­ing the re­al­is­tic fic­tion mi­lieu, she has suc­ceed­ed in telling a fa­mil­iar sto­ry—one which re­sem­bles re­al life—and the fic­tion­al char­ac­ters in the nov­el re­act sim­i­lar­ly to re­al peo­ple. It’s this genre of writ­ing which al­lows writ­ers to show us how to con­tend with some prob­lems of the hu­man con­di­tion. It is here we can meet peo­ple with sim­i­lar prob­lems–and how they can be ad­dressed.

Ra­jahram has thrown her prover­bial hat in­to the ring. Maybe, just maybe, she may con­sid­er the role of a den­tist who could not on­ly fill the cav­i­ty in a tooth, but al­so keep on wiring hope and life in­to the emp­ty hearts and minds of peo­ple who want to ex­it life be­fore liv­ing it.

It is my wish that if there is any­one in cor­po­rate Trinidad will­ing to as­sist in a launch for Ra­jahram’s nov­el, it would be a cre­ative ges­ture that would cost less that any Car­ni­val 2023 cos­tume. Con­tact 762-2418. Let’s put young writ­ers on a pedestal—they need this STAGE. It’s a good thing to en­able Young Adults to tell oth­ers sto­ries that can act as cat­a­lysts to turn the dross of straw lives in­to gold! As they say—the pen is might­i­er that the gun!

PS: Ra­jahram’s wish is to have a book launch that can be broad­cast live! One that is jazzy, not je­june.