Harare Review of Books

384 pages. Published July 30, 2024 by Zando Projects/SJP Lit. Fiction.

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Some spoilers ahead

Bonnie and Mansour meet in mid-century New York. They have things in common: very messy childhoods, and time spent in a town called Mende, in France. But how they meet comes about through very unusual circumstances, perhaps destiny: Bonnie is toiling away in the basement of a record company when she comes across liner notes for Mansour’s debut album, recorded with his mate Liam. Intrigued, she later creates album art for it and sneaks it into the pile going out for printing. When she’s caught—by her lover’s wife, no less, a record company executive—she’s sent to attend the release party, and eventually meets Mansour. It’s something much deeper than love at first sight.

But there are many currents flowing below and between their lives; their love story is fraught and full of pain, as they leave New York after a tragic death, and move back to Europe. Mansour is an orphan, a man with a crippling medical condition, and is also a Black man living in 1960s and 70s France, in the US, and Switzerland. When they first meet, Bonnie has just lost the grandmother who raised her after her own mother abandoned her, and is adrift in the world.

This is an achingly lyrical story, with fully realised, memorable Black characters. Mansour has the air of tragedy about him, but struggles forward always. His adoptive mother seems cold, until you learn about her own battles. Bonnie’s mother is also paying forward her inherited, generational pain. But Bonnie and Mansour are bound by more than pain, and that gives the story hope.

Read for the evocative atmosphere Sennaar has created in this novel, for this rare and beautiful visualisation of Afrodiasporic life in mid-century Europe. Read also if you enjoyed Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water: this has the same rhythms, also grounds the story in music, and is equally lyrical, although it feels like this story goes deeper. There is a thread of fabulism running through, culminating in a truly unrealistic scene—but by then, Sennaar’s storymaking will have you take it all in stride. They Dream in Gold is a love letter to love, and to difficult families.

Many thanks to Zando/SJP Lit and to NetGalley for an early copy.

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