As I looked out into the hazy horizon and into the Atlantic Ocean, the recurring thought of eggshells came to my mind as it has for the past couple of years.
Who Kisses in a Cathedral
by James Waziri
Genre: Memoir
About: A diarised account of a man's two week trip to Florida taken over the holidays, where long term friendships are seen in a new light and unexpected tensions arise.
Thoughts
The story takes place during the 23rd of December 2023 and the 6th of January 2024 and I did like how we weren't given a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened each day, but rather a selection of events that builds up the author's narrative. Waziri has a really interesting way to ground you in the moment and I really felt the tension rising the further into the holiday we got.
That said, it did take me a while to click with the narrative style. For the first 20 pages or so, I wasn't too sure why this book needed to be written. It didn't grip me and Waziri himself later tells how he's often been described as cold and blunt. That was how the book felt to me at the start as well. I also found there was some unnecessary descriptions and conversations appeared stilted. But on learning that Waziri is self-diagnosed as being on the spectrum, the narrative voice began to make sense to me. My almost four-year-old son is non-verbal and on the waiting list for an autism diagnosis and my older brother has been diagnosed with autism, so I'm familiar with the behaviour and thought progress of two very important people in my life who are on the spectrum and I really appreciated the representation Waziri gives in his account. The details he focuses on, the way he approaches group situations and his observations of people provide a useful insight for anyone who has someone in their life on the spectrum.
I loved seeing how creative Waziri is, how compassionate, and open-minded. It was really interesting to learn about the coping strategies he's developed over the years to accommodate to other people and to try to understand them. A lot of the tension in scenes came from Waziri trying to decipher between a person's actions and their words. While reading it was interesting for me to consider how someone else in the scene might be perceiving Waziri or how differently the events might play out in a different characters perspective. That's not to say I thought Waziri was being misleading or unreliable in his narrative, but we're of course only given his experiences and thoughts.
And, to an extent, many of his experience of Americans were similar to my own. When I travelled to the States I found it really difficult to be reliant on my host so much because you have to drive to go anywhere and when your host is not in a good mental state, that means you're forced into an isolated situation and your food, your schedule, every aspect of your day is set by your host. To be on the spectrum under those circumstances would be extremely stressful to say the least.
With that in mind, I did find January 4th onwards the portion of the book I struggled the most with. Waziri may be completely correct with all of his conclusions, and certainly he's unmasked some very poor friendships, but I did find a lot of what he supposes to be quite speculative and far-fetched.
But that doesn't take away from the overall effect this book had on me, which was that it was really eye-opening. I've included a portion of a quote that really struck me when he spoke of his relationship with his sister. Often Waziri's reflections were touching and I hope his family read his book and are able to understand him better.
Comments