As Good as True by Cheryl Reid: book review

As Good as True (2018) is set during a hot August week in Alabama, America, in 1956. It is written in the first person, by Anna Nassad.

Anna Nassad, the wife of a baker, wakes up late to find her husband Elias dead: ‘The house was quiet with a dead man in it.’ They had been married for 27 years. Now she was relieved that he was dead.

Anna’s pregnant daughter Marina and son Eli were both devastated at the death of their father. The family – immigrants from Syria – had lived in the community for fifty years – Elias’s brother Ivie, and their mother Nelly; and Anna’s brother Gus, his wife Lila, and their five-year-old daughter Sophie.

Anna knew that her husband was not a nice man. Surely he was planning to kill Orlando Washington.

Orlando Washington was the first black postman to deliver mail to white folks in Riverton, Alabama. Anna allowed him to deliver mail to her house. After all, Orlando used to play with her brother Gus when they were kids. Days before her husband died, Anna had invited Orlando inside to have a glass of water. Not only was the community angry at this display of unwarranted generosity, but so was her husband. He wanted Orlando to stop delivering the mail to their house.

Was Anna fed up with her husband’s lack of tolerance towards others? Did Anna kill her husband? Or was she complicit in his death – aiding Orlando? Elias’s brother and mother think so.

This novel attempts to explore race relations in the south of America in the 1950s, as well as the isolation of two sole Middle East immigrant families in the community and internal family conflicts, but misses the effectiveness to make this a compelling story. Truth becomes vague and obscure through the use of Anna Nassad as the storyteller. Overall, there are many aspects missing – the complexity of the situation is lost, it lacks suspense and credibility, and there is a void in dealing with the community’s reactions.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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