THE ASH MUSEUM BY REBECCA SMITH
Where the past is waiting …
PAPERBACK PUBLISHED BY LEGEND PRESS 3RD MAY 2021
1944. The battle of Kohima
James Ash dies leaving behind two families: his wife Josmi and two children, Jay and Molly, and his parents and sister in England who know nothing about his Indian family.
2012.
Emmie is raising her own daughter, Jasmine, in a world she wants to be very different from the racist England of her childhood. Her father Jay, doesn’t even have a photograph of the mother he lost and still refuses to discuss his life in India. Emmie finds comfort in the local museum a treasure trove of another family’s stories and artefacts.
Little does Emmie know that with each generation, her own story holds secrets and fascinations that she could only dream of. Through ten decades and across three continents, The Ash Museum is an intergenerational story of loss, migration and the search for somewhere to feel at home.
MY REVIEW
The book I read 2 day is The Ash Museum by Rebecca Smith it’s one I will never forget, as parts of it had me in tears.
To me Emmie seemed to me the main important character. Her father is half Indian.
When Emmie was a young girl she liked dressing up as an Indian chief with a feathered headdress and a printed waistcoat over a plain yellow T-shirt, and brown trousers which zigzagged with a stencilled buffalo running down the sides.
On page 41. Breast Feather from a White Goose, in the mid -1970s, had me in tears for Emmie and my heart went out to Emmie facing racism so young. It’s so sad as girls weren’t that kind to her. One girl said to Emmie You’re really weird, when you turn your hands sideways you’ve got a line where it’s brown and then pink, adding my dad says you can tell coloured people because the palms of their hands are a different colour from the backs of their hands, so you must be coloured. But then your dad is coloured. Nignogs have those hands, said the girl, is your dad a nignog? He’s half Indian said Emmie. Half nignog said a girl to Emmie.
Although this story is set in various time frames going back and forth, this racism part in the story is certainly, very emotional, as it highlights the troubling times back then of how families bringing up their children to be racist and still sadly racism goes on today. I know a lot of readers will connect with this part of the story in identifying with people’s discriminating behaviour being racist towards them, which is totally unacceptable being racist, it doesn’t cost anything to be nice to someone.
One of my favourite part of the story is when Emmie is a mother and raising her daughter on her own. She wants her daughter Jasmine to be a world very different from racism. Emmie works in a library and has to take her daughter Jasmine into work. Jasmine is a good girl, and made me laugh helping sort out the lost property box. This story starts of in the 1930s right through the years up to 2014.
There’s a whole lot more to The Ash Museum, I have only highlighted a few scenes within the story.
I found The Ash Museum interesting with all the different generations, and topics that book clubs could discuss, and with being bang up to date with how racism effects young children who are trying to fit in at school.
What has been said about The Ash Museum
Touching, universal and utterly relatable Carmel Harrington
A beautiful written, multi-generation tale with characters you will want to be friends with. Ella Dove.
Endlessly exciting with vivid humour and deep empathy, all stirred up in Rebecca’s trademark scintillating prose. Philip Hoare.
ABOUT AUTHOR REBECCA SMITH
Rebecca Smith is five times great niece of Jane Austen and a teaching fellow at the University of Southampton.
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