Lisa Ray Instagram – I’m so damn proud and excited to have the honour of advocating for #Brother by #DavidChariandy to be the ‘One Book to Move You’ for the 2019 Edition of @cbcbooks #CanadaReads. This exquisitely written, heart breaking novel speaks to your soul and will linger long after the last page. * Here’s an excerpt from @guardian review. Catch me and my other esteemed panelists on @cbc March 25-28th * ‘You can always do things to let the world know you’re not nobody. You never know when your break is coming,” says older brother Francis, advising Michael to relax, to be less clueless, less of a pussy. But Francis learns early on that his break isn’t coming, that it is dangerous to hope. Narrated by the adult Michael, Canadian author David Chariandy’s tightly crafted, gracefully elegiac second novel alternates between present-day and early 1980s Scarborough, a hopeless Toronto neighbourhood of poor immigrants and their disenfranchised children. Nicknamed Scarlem and Scarbistan and Scar-bro, it is a study in the cultural divide between the displaced and their offspring. The parents have “useless foreign degrees” framed on the walls of their corner shops, advertising “back home tastes” on hand-painted signs. Their feral children, “oiled creatures of mongoose cunning”, hang out in barbershops, mix music and watch The A-Team and The Dukes of Hazzard. In the present day, Francis is gone and Michael is left to care for their mother alone. When Aisha, Michael’s studious childhood girlfriend and now a writer, returns to the neighbourhood, she forces mother and son to reckon with their “complicated grief” and memories of Francis. Read #Brother, share your thoughts below and let’s support great books and stories. #CanadaReads2019 #brotherdavidchariandy @cbcbooks