Like Sodium in Water by Hayden Eastwood: book review

Like Sodium in Water: A memoir of home and heartache (2018) is Hayden Eastwood’s autobiographical novel, set in post-independence Zimbabwe from 1987.

Eastwood begins with his school days in Zimbabwe, and family life in a liberal household with his parents (lawyer father Anthony and mother Annette), younger brothers Dan and Miles, and sister Beebs – discussing politics and socialism and reading William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies.

The brothers make a pact to never grow up and never, ever be interested in girls. Which is fine until they are teenagers, and they meet Sarah – and Sophie, and Kirsty.

Then there is a family tragedy. Hayden goes to England to further his studies at university for a year, but is that going to make him forget the tragedy?

It’s a slow start, until the tragedy, and then the memoir changes pace in a sentence. Adolescent mood swings, alcohol, drugs, religion, an ultimatum, guilt, and the ‘rage of invisibility’ are people’s ways of coping in this interesting memoir.

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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