The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "At eight o'clock Joseph and Kenneth come into the store..." (more)
Key Phrases: beautiful things that heaven bears, Logan Circle, General Logan, Capitol Hotel (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Barely suppressed despair and black wit infuse this beautifully observed debut from Ethiopian émigré Mengestu. Set over eight months in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood in the 1970s, it captures an uptick in Ethiopian grocery store owner Sepha Stephanos's long-deferred hopes, as Judith, a white academic, fixes up the four-story house next to his apartment building, treats him to dinner and lets him steal a kiss. Just as unexpected is Sepha's friendship with Judith's biracial 11-year-old daughter, Naomi (one of the book's most vivid characters), over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Mengestu adds chiaroscuro with the story of Stephanos's 17-year exile from his family and country following his father's murder by revolutionary soldiers. After long days in the dusty, barely profitable shop, Sepha's two friends, Joseph from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya, joke with Sepha about African dictators and gently mock his romantic aspirations, while the neighborhood's loaded racial politics hang over Sepha and Judith's burgeoning relationship like a sword of Damocles. The novel's dirge-like tone may put off readers looking for the next Kite Runner, but Mengestu's assured prose and haunting set pieces (especially a series of letters from Stephanos's uncle to Jimmy Carter, pleading that he respect "the deep friendship between our two countries") are heart-rending and indelible. (Feb.)
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From The Washington Post

One of the glories of the literature of exile is the sharp outlines a writer can bring to the contours of his adoptive society. For readers who were born in the writer's host country, such literature can uncover things that might otherwise be obscured by familiarity. Dinaw Mengestu's praiseworthy first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, draws upon this principle. Take, for example, this wide-eyed reflection by Sepha Stephanos, the Ethiopian émigré who narrates the story, on riding the Washington Metro: "The red-line train bound for the suburbs of Maryland is delayed. The trains of this city continue to marvel me, regardless of how long I live here. It's not just their size, but their order, the sense you get when riding them that a higher, regulatory power is in firm control, even if you yourself are not." Most native Metro users probably wouldn't greet a delay with such transcendental musings.

But Stephanos lacks an outlet -- aside from his friends -- to channel his thoughts. The novel underscores this element by contrasting his plight with that of the 19th-century writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who is a favorite author of a character in the novel. Unlike the blue-blooded Frenchman who returned to his homeland and was celebrated for his insights into American life, the struggling Stephanos seems unlikely to return to his native country or win admiration for his perspicacity.

As a teenager, Stephanos fled Ethiopia to escape fallout from the military coup that ousted Haile Selassie in 1974 and thrust the Dergue -- a junta that ruled the country until 1987 -- into power. Stephanos's father -- a prosperous lawyer in Ethiopia's capital -- attracted the ire of a government determined to snuff out all so-called counter- revolutionaries. After witnessing his father's brutal treatment at the hands of the Dergue's henchmen, Stephanos acceded to his mother's wishes and fled Ethiopia. Eventually, he made his way to Washington.

Mengestu's tightly written novel largely unfolds in alternating chapters of past and present. The story is structured around a period of unrest in Logan Circle when gentrification led to evictions. For Stephanos, the influx of moneyed white people into the predominantly black neighborhood where he resides and runs a grocery store is a welcome event. He hopes that his business might improve along with the neighborhood and that his loneliness might be alleviated by a white academic and her biracial child, whom he befriends.

Unfortunately, vandalism aimed at Logan Circle's new residents prompts the Tocqueville-loving scholar, with whom Stephanos is enamored, to leave the neighborhood. And so, while Stephanos mulls over the events that vaporized his hopes for a more fulfilling life, he finds himself in a self-reflective purgatory, searching for a new raison d'être. Indeed, the title of the novel comes from the last lines of Dante's Inferno, where the poet, emerging from hell, is granted a glimpse of heaven before he makes his way into purgatory.

Apart from its lean sentences, which very rarely overreach, Mengestu's novel benefits from his plausible depiction of characters caught on the seams between two worlds -- rich/poor, black/white, citizen/foreigner. This lends an urgency to their ruminations that believably cleanses their conversation of small talk. In other words, the big ideas of Stephanos and his two African friends about racial politics in America, the necessary accouterments for success, and why colonels make for better dictators than generals don't come off as stilted but as natural byproducts of their exiled condition.

With its well-observed characters and brisk narrative pacing, greatly benefited by the characters' tension-laced wit, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is an assured literary debut by a writer worth watching.

-- Christopher Byrd is a writer who lives in New York.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594489408
• ISBN-13: 978-1594489402
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,192 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully and powerfly written, March 2, 2007

By	Dona Patrick (Bethesda, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is rare that I finish a book, only to begin to read it over again the next day. That's what happened when I finished Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears.

Mengestu's writing allowed me to visualize nearly every scene and get to know several of the characters in the novel as if I'd been their friend for years. I could picture Judith's house and Sepha's store. My heart went out to Sepha's Uncle Berhane, who spent years writing letters about his country to congressmen and presidents, and saving copies of his correspondence.

His writing is not forced nor flowery nor full of words an average reader needs to look up in a dictionary. His writing is conversational and accessible, yet he tells a powerful story with those words.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars quality novel, must read.., March 12, 2007

By	Elsa (california) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A few months ago, I stumbled upon the uncorrected (limited publication) of this book. Rarely do I read a book a second time; in this case I did when the final copy came out. I loved it. The second time was even better.
It is an exceptional, beautifully crafted Novel. Unforgettable novel.
This story is written very well the characters are so vivid and lovable all with human flaws and strengths, which make them very real. They live within us with unfulfilled dreams and hopes.
The author has done an excellent job to keep the story going keeping you in suspense and wanting to know what happen to the characters.
I found it charming, delightful, sometimes funny, and always intriguing I couldn't put it down.
A book every immigrant can relate to. It is one of the best books I read in the last few years. A must read to people that appreciate quality literature.
Dinaw Mengestu's talent as a storyteller is shown in this first novel. I look forward and hope to read more from him in the future.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Melancholy and gently humorous . . ., June 19, 2007

By	Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The central character and narrator of this melancholy novel, Sepha, is a 30-something Ethiopian immigrant, living in Washington, DC, in a run-down neighborhood that is suddenly showing signs of gentrification. After 17 years in the States, he has long since reached the point of accepting his fate - an endless exile from the country of his birth and the mother and younger brother who survived the revolution that he himself escaped at the age of 19. A shopkeeper now, operating a little market, he lacks the drive that makes model immigrants of others and thus barely makes ends meet - less than barely.

Except for two friends, Ken and Joe, also African immigrants, he leads a lonely and listless life. By contrast, Ken an engineer from Kenya, strives steadily to adapt himself to the American pursuit of material success; Joe, a waiter in a high-class restaurant, is a closet epic poet, obsessed with the political debacle of his own country, Congo. The friendship of these three single men is poignant and often quietly amusing, and they pass the time with ironic reminders of how their lives in America have been like an escape from Dante's hell (the title is a reference to the closing lines of "The Inferno").

Enter a well-off white woman, an academic with a school-age daughter. When she buys and renovates a house in the neighborhood, she sparks a feint romantic interest in Sepha, as well as the resentment of the welfare-check neighbors being evicted as rents suddenly begin to soar. The resulting events make for a wistful account of people traumatized by brutal political upheavals, and washing up in the land of freedom and opportunity, where lives settle into a kind of permanent holding pattern. Beautifully written, with a quiet charm that finds rueful laughter in sadness and loss. Readers may also appreciate Hisham Matar's "In the Country of Men."