All Our Names

ALL OUR NAMES

by Dinaw Mengestu

 

Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2016, Kirkus Finalist 2014

 

Date Read: October 30, 2021

 

All Our Names is precisely as the title suggests: We pick up and discard names throughout out lives that serve a function in the moment but ultimately do not define us. The man we know as Isaac, and who’s real name we never do know (but does it matter?), shares this name with his best friend and co-fighter in the war to liberate Uganda. Warrior Isaac was gifted by his lover and leader Joseph a passport, visa and plane ticket to the U.S. and instead gives it to No Name Isaac. As much as it devastates Isaac to leave, he takes the opportunity.

 

Upon arriving in the Midwest with his new name, under the guise of an exchange student and confusing the locals with his deep black skin and proclivity for Victorian English. Isaac soon learns the racism that still inhabits much of our country. Not only does he now need to learn to live alone, in exile but to he learns how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin.

 

His one saving grace is Helen, a disillusioned social worker assigned to help him get settled and establish the beginnings of a life. Her help and his dependence on her quickly escalates into an affair that they both desperately need. Helen, lost and unsure of her future shares these longings with Isaac, also lost and unsure of his future. Although marked with passion and tenderness, all of this ambiguity in each of their lives leads to a collective ambiguity in their future together.

 

Helen, both innocent and guilty, walks on eggshells around the issue of Isaac’s race. Instead of them having an honest dialogue about the U.S. still having major issues with mixed-race couples, she says things like the woman they are about to meet is “…not comfortable with strangers,” or “They aren’t used to seeing me.” I think their intimacy would have been enhanced by being honest and acknowledging how behind we are in accepting all human beings as human beings.

 

Isaac, now on this side of the revolution, can only sit helplessly by while he receives word of Isaac’s death in Uganda. He must lumber forward with the knowledge of the violence he has witnessed and committed. In an apt ending, readers are left with uncertainty as to the future of Isaac and Helen.

 

I cannot imagine being a young person fighting such a grown-up war. As exciting as a revolution could ultimately be the weight of human life and the power to take that life is a brutal burden to bear. Mengetsu infuses all of his characters, whether you like them or not, with a deep sense of humanity and conviction.