Review: RED, I. Allan Sealy

The Painter's Family

The intense cover of Sealy’s latest book captures its essence. It is that perfectly effusive shade of red with the letters of the title embossed over the surface. Tantalized, you flip through and stop short at the dedication: “To the writer’s family”, and below that, a painting. It should have been in colour. Matisse, The Painter’s Family. The Painter is missing and his daughter wants to step out of the frame.

Written in the form of an Abecedary, Sealy constructs three parallel stories that are bound to collide. There is the stodgy ‘N’arrator and his conflicted relationship with his ‘D’aughter; ‘a creature who will not stay’, and his ex-wife ‘O’live. There is ‘A’line, a wealthy Matisse fanatic who will rip through his canvas just to find the source of the colour red. She is in love with ‘Z’ach, a musician who hears the world as sound. And finally there is ‘G’ilgitan who steals his way into the landscape of Red. He is a low caste criminal, an amateur painter of trucks, signs and tiles. He falls in love; with a stolen painting and with Aline. And finally, there is the ‘red’ that is Matisse’s obsession and the elusive ‘R’ed who is obsessed with Matisse.

The book, like Matisse’s Red Room is intense, delicious and palpable. Sealy is indulgent with his plot and his language without compromising on structural integrity. He is crafty with his words, scattering them like seeds, watching them grow, take root, ripen into a delicious red till they begin to bear the colour ‘Y’ellow; the colour of ‘repose’ that comes after ‘the song of red, after the scrum of brown and blue and green’.

Read red to decipher the codes.