All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews

Set during Obama years, with its mixture of cultural optimism and economic struggles, All This Could be Different, the debut novel by Sarah Thankam Mathews is a book about friendship and queer love, but also an intelligent discourse about the discontents of capitalism during our times.

Sneha arrived from India with her parents as a child, but her family´s American dream ended terribly and she is the only who remained in the US. In her early 20s, despite the looming crisis, she got a mid-level corporate job in Milwaukee. Enjoying the corporate perks and the lavish restaurants, saving while still sending money back home, getting into conflict with bizarre abusive landlords, she forgot to really track what is going on within her company. She was hoping that ´All This Could be Different´. But in a turn of fate, she is not paid the salary due to some money discontinuity within the company then suddenly fired, evicted from her apartment and sleeping over the couch of her lover, Marina.

Getting a job in Washington DC, when she was one step before getting completely lost, she is returning to check on a project she supported suggested by her friend Tig: a community housing that may offer an alternative to the everyday trouble young people encounter when looking for an apartment to rent. It is an alternative to capitalistic apartment ownership: investing not only for yourself, but the the sake of the community.

I waited a long time to read this book from my online library and although I really enjoyed reading it - there are some smart linguistic twists and the characters are humorously dysfunctional - it took me an even longer time to finish it. I felt contemporary with the worries and concerns of the characters and the fine capitalist critic - and subsequently, of the American dream - is intelligent and realistic. Far from being boring. But somehow, the pace of the story slowed down in a difuse narrative that was enjoying the luxury of time with no limit. It is like someone who keeps telling a story day after day after day.

However, I really enjoyed the read and gave me a lot of hope about intelligent stories set in the immediat reality, going beyond the familiar ideological screams. It does not turn into a lecture against - whatever it is fancy to be against - but offers some real life stories of young people devoured by the surrounding realities. ´All This Could Be Different´, indeed. 

Rating: 3.5 stars