I received a review copy of ‘The Tree, The Well and the Drag Queen from the author Salini Vineeth yesterday. I finished this 119-page novella today.
There is a village with a cursed tree. The generations of one particular family are responsible for caring for the tree. The family consists of parents, a boy and a grandmother. The boy is unhappy since he is searching for his identity, and his father is mean to him. Through the narrative, the boy faces a lot of hardships and finds himself after an eventful journey.
The story is unlike anything I expected. The story is about a generational curse, an LGBTQIA person, their relationships with their parents, their coming-out story, and their travails in life.
The tree in the story reminded me of The Lord of the Rings and also Jack and the Beanstalk. There is a touch of magical realism in the way the story is told. Some of it seems part-fable, too. Dead people come back in the story as cats and other animals.
The writing is evocative, and the narrative is deep. It is like a fairy tale and a horror story at the same time.
