“The Fortune Men” by Nadifa Mohamed is
a story that exists off the page. Nominated for
the 2021 Booker Prize, “The Fortune Men” is
based on true events, as Mohamed brings to light
the wrongful conviction of Somali 29-year-old
Mahmoud Hussein Mattan for the murder of
Jewish shopkeeper, Lily Volpert. In the book,
Mattan is referred to as ‘Mahmood,’ while Lily
is renamed ‘Violet.’ Mattan was the last man to
be hanged in Cardiff prison. “I wanted to make
the line between fact and fiction imperceptible
so [I] immersed myself in the minute details of
Mahmood’s life so that I could almost think his
thoughts,” said Mohamed in her Booker Prize
Q&A.
And that is exactly what she does. Leading up to
the crime, we follow Mahmood as he goes through
the motions of his everyday life. He begins at the
Employment Exchange office, where Mohamed
initially makes clear the racist and classist
commentary that inform this story — “There is
nothing worth trying for; none of the usual firms
that can be relied upon to take coloured fellas are
advertising” — before making his way to place bets
at the racetrack.
During these initial chapters, Mohamed
intertwines the perspective of Violet Volacki,
the shopkeeper who is later murdered; her sister,
Diana; and Diana’s daughter, Grace. Mohamed
includes only enough backstory for the reader to
understand the history of the Volacki shop, opened
by Violet’s father when he immigrated to Cardiff,
and its prominence to the community. Everyone
knew Violet, and she knew them; at her funeral,
“there must have been more than two hundred
mourners from all districts of Cardiff.”
She was murdered in the shop after closing,
having gone to answer the doorbell before settling
down to eat with Diana and Grace. The latter
remained in the adjoining dining room when
Violet left to help the customer, each catching a
brief glimpse of the man waiting outside the shop
door: “A black shadow with a mouth of gold.”
It was following Violet’s death, under the
perspective of Diana, that I was first struck with
the magnitude of Mohamed’s writing. “The tide
of it all just pulling her in and pushing her out, the
shipwreck slow and ongoing until maybe, one day,
she will wash up on some distant, unknowable
beach, hopefully with Grace still beside her.”
Mohamed’s
talent
shines
in
profound,
emotional moments of grief. Though I had wanted
more of these heart-wrenching lines, I think
their infrequent use was purposeful to the novel’s
intention. While some aspects are more fictitious,
the book is still conveying a true story, after all.
In real life, we fail to speak in constant imagery
and metaphor; in that sense, Mohamed strikes a
delicate balance between these descriptive, almost
lyrical moments and the more realistic accounts of
trauma and injustice.
After Violet’s death, the narration sticks to
Mahmood’s perspective. Though there is little
evidence beyond the general description of a
“tall, coloured man,” Mahmood is arrested the
day after the murder. The police try to pressure
Mahmood into a confession, taking advantage
of his limited English to create an intensely
stressful environment: “Mahmood stumbles, his
English is fracturing, words of Somali, Arabic,
Hindi, Swahili and English clotting at once on his
tongue.”
The police also fail to read Mahmood his rights,
specifically the fact that he can leave the station.
The abuse of the police is portrayed repeatedly
throughout the novel as they try to pin Mahmood
for the crime. During the interrogation, Mohamed
reveals the Chief Detective’s racist train of thought,
demonstrating that catching the right man was
less crucial than their desire to protect their own
influence and power.
Though “The Fortune of Men” is largely
responsible for sharing Mahmoud Hussein
Mattan’s story with a modern audience, much
of this story is not unfamiliar. In an interview
with The New York Times, Mohamed shares the
following: “I’ve always seen the side of the state,
and that’s probably why I was able to keep the
interest in Mahmood Mattan’s story for all those
years, because I knew this wasn’t anything that
was changing quickly. Even now when I speak to
the children in my family, and they talk about their
experiences of racism, the way that the teachers
talk to them or about them, you can see that they’re
another generation that will have to carry on the
struggle.”
4 — Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Arts
Faith and injustice bloom in Nadifa Mohamed’s
Booker-nominated ‘The Fortune Men’
LILLY PEARCE
Books Beat Editor
It’s the most wonderful time of the
year. Fears come back from the dead and
walk in the day. Goths thrive at midnight
showings of “Rocky Horror” and vandals
throw eggs at houses. And the Film Beat?
We’re popping popcorn and crawling
under blankets to watch some of our
favorite scary (or just vaguely spooky)
films. ’Tis the season for tricks and treats
— whether we’re jumping in our skins or
howling at the moon. Join us as we walk
through films that remind us of the dark
night of Halloween.
I think I was 11 the first time I
watched “Jennifer’s Body.” I can’t be
sure because I remember it through
the kind of exhausted haze that only
a middle or high school sleepover can
induce. Through the struggle to keep
my eyes open at one o’clock in the
morning, trying to hide the fact that I
usually went to bed at ten every night, I
remember watching Megan Fox (“Night
Teeth”) hover above a pool in a soaked,
blood-stained white dress and elbow-
length gloves. I definitely remember
a close-up shot of her and Amanda
Seyfried’s
(“Mank”)
locked
lips,
lingering indulgently as they kissed, and
I remember myself thinking, fleetingly,
“This is making me feel a weird new
feeling; I wonder what it could mean.”
Pretty much everything other than
that was lost on me. I fell asleep right
after the movie, and by the next morning,
I’d basically forgotten I watched it at all.
Aside from occasionally scrolling past
that one screenshot of Fox holding a
lighter’s flame to the end of her tongue
when I ventured onto the emo side of
Tumblr, I didn’t really interact with
it again until April of this year when
a couple of friends and I sat down to
watch it with some cheap wine.
There are a handful of movies that fall
into an incredibly niche genre for me
that’s kind of hard to describe. They’re
movies that I just know would have been
incredibly formative had I seen them in
my early teens. Maybe even more than
the potential to have been formative,
though, is that they somehow felt
nostalgic to me upon first viewing as if I
didn’t only get around to watching them
in my early 20s. I connected to them
immediately because they scratched
an itch in a very particular part of my
brain, so much so that it feels like I’ve
always known them intimately. So far,
I’ve only found three movies that fall
into this category: “Frances Ha,” “But
I’m a Cheerleader” and “Jennifer’s
Body.”
It’s possible that I don’t watch enough
horror movies to make this call, but
as far as I know, there’s nothing like
“Jennifer’s Body.” I’m sure there are a
lot of movies that mix scares, gore and
humor well, but Fox’s performance as
Jennifer simply elevates everything.
Jennifer is a Midwestern, late-aughts
wannabe Kardashian, complete with
the vocal fry, who delivers every single
one-liner with a complete lack of self-
awareness and all of the confidence
in the world. It makes all of the jokes
feel like surprises. Every laugh it got
out of me during that first rewatch
was halfway between a laugh and an
incredulous bark.
Take,
for
example,
the
climax
of the movie: Jennifer and Needy
fight in Jennifer’s bedroom. Needy’s
brandishing a knife because she’s
there to avenge her boyfriend, who the
demon-possessed Jennifer killed to
satiate her appetite for male flesh. The
two fight, fall onto Jennifer’s bed in
slow motion, and Needy stabs Jennifer
in the chest. As she gasps and bleeds
out, Jennifer croaks out quietly, “My tit
…” These are her last words.
When the movie premiered back in
2009, it was critically and commercially
panned, but it’s since been revisited,
reevaluated and redeemed as a “feminist
cult classic.” I think of it as something of
a rape-revenge film as well, the kind of
movie that “Promising Young Woman”
could only ever dream of being. Jennifer
is killed as a virgin sacrifice by an indie
band (yes, really) in search of fame and
fortune, but because she’s not actually
a virgin, she comes back as a possessed
succubus with the insatiable urge to
eat men. It’s easy to see why a movie
like this would’ve been met with such
resistance a decade ago, and why it’s so
loved now. Women have always been
angry, but now we’re louder about it.
The world wasn’t ready for “Jennifer’s
Body” in its time, and, as much as I like
to think otherwise, I can’t be sure that I
would’ve been ready either. I suppose I
can’t be too hard on myself about that,
though. I was young, and I had a lot of
internalized misogyny that would’ve
made it hard, if not impossible, to like
this movie. I probably would’ve found
Jennifer grating, probably would’ve
lied through my teeth and gushed with
my friends about how hot Adam Brody
(“Promising
Young
Woman”)
was,
probably would’ve walked away from it
and then dismissed it outright as a bad
movie.
So maybe I have to amend my earlier
criteria
for
could’ve-been-formative
movies because the reality is that I
just wasn’t smart enough to enjoy
“Jennifer’s Body” for the vast majority
of my tween/teen years. Instead, I
should say that, if I’d been able to fully
appreciate them, movies like “Jennifer’s
Body” would’ve helped me become a
better person sooner.
Frights, Camera, Action: ‘Jennifer’s Body’
KATRINA STEBBINS
Daily Arts Writer
Design by Madison Grosvenor
Cover art for “The Fortune Men” owned by Viking.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
David M. Dennison
Collegiate Professor
of Physics
QUESTS AND
DISCOVERIES
AT THE ENERGY
FRONTIER
Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10th Floor
LSA COLLEGIATE LECTURE
A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or virtually.
For more information, including the Zoom link, visit events.umich.
edu/event/84263 or call 734.615.6667.
JIANMING
QIAN
A public lecture and reception; you may attend in person or
virtually. For more information, including the Zoom link, visit
events.umich.edu/event/84264 or call 734.615.6667.
Rhys Isaac Collegiate
Professor of History
Susan
Juster
Mumbling
Masses and
Jumbling
Beads”
Wednesday, November 10 2021 | 4:00 p.m. | Weiser Hall, 10th Floor
LSA COLLEGIATE LECTURE
Finding Catholics
in Early America
“
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Yellow is not always the warm
color everyone thinks it is.
People always seem to assume
that things that carry the color
yellow automatically convey the
spirit of the color: the warmth of
the sun, the prosperity of coins,
the sweetness of a ripe banana.
Besides the fact that the sun is
a blinding ball of heat, music
made with this color possesses
so much more than warmth.
Like
afternoon
shadows,
yellow covers a ground that is
constantly shifting.
In “yellow is the color of
her eyes” by Soccer Mommy,
all of this yellow holds intense
grief. It is the warmth of the
sun, yes, but also her mother’s
illness. When I think of yellow,
I often picture it as a solid
color block. My mind becomes
a length of yellow, stretching
out and wrapping over the
insides of my eyes. But, as any
painter will tell you, colors
never
exist
as
something
defined by a singular word.
Yellow is not one bright shade,
providing a beach backdrop
to everything. In this song,
yellow ribbons are wrapped
around her melancholy, tying
everything together, gathering
many emotions into one song as
her mother’s illness fades into
yellow.
Yellow is unexpectedly the
color of loss. This is again the
case with “Big Yellow Taxi”
by Joni Mitchell (a woman
determined to give her listeners
a color palette). The song is
upbeat, the color is specified,
but the content is sad. It
details someone, possibly a
lover or father, leaving her
unexpectedly in the middle of
the night. Yellow and love have
their fingers linked and their
hair braided together, a mix at
times goofy and at other times
melancholic.
Somehow,
this
song is both.
“Yellow Eyes” by Rayland
Baxter
carries
mostly
melancholy. It has the syrup
of heartbreak in it, the kind
so sad that it’s also kind of
lovely. There is a kind of
light
engulfing
the
song,
unclear
whether
from
the
sun or elsewhere. The song
carries its subject tenderly,
acknowledging that yellow is
more breakable than we think.
It’s funny to think of a color as
an object. How many different
emotions can yellow objects
convey? There is the slow drip
of yellow-honeyed love in “Just
Like Honey” by The Jesus and
Mary Chain. It does not rush
itself to you; it acknowledges
that it is worth the wait.
Meanwhile, in “Yellow” by
Myles Cameron, the romantic
pair is suspended in a yellow
hour, mangos hanging around
them and daisies at their feet.
And, of course, the classic
“Yellow Submarine” by The
Beatles
submerges
you
in
an ocean of pure weirdness.
However,
even
this
is
not
straightforward in its drug-
induced state. “Lucy In The
Sky With Diamonds,” also by
The Beatles, features yellow as
well in its color-heavy lyrics.
There is a swirling confusion
added to the color. Unlike most
confusions,
there’s
nothing
ominous or worrying about
them, but it does introduce
an added layer to an already
complex color.
“Yellow”
by
Coldplay
is
viewed as a top-tier love song,
as evidenced by its recent
incorporation
into
TikTok
culture. People will post about
their significant others to the
tune of the song, answering the
question, “Who’s your yellow?”
To give someone a whole color,
to allow them to fully take
up its meaning, is a powerful
thing. But in the song itself, the
love is parasitic. When you give
absolutely
everything
inside
yourself to love, what is the
point of separation between
romance and breaking? When
everything turns one color, does
everything become the same?
There is an excitement to
yellow — there is an excitement
to any color — but does one want
to experience love as the same
shade?
The
loophole
of
this,
perhaps, is that yellow holds
infinite things in its pockets.
Surprisingly, yellow is rarely
used to be the sun; yellow is
specified as its own thing. It has
a deep identity overwhelmingly
its own.
Music in yellow:
A shifting
ROSA SOFIA KAMINSKI
Daily Arts Writer
Design by Erin Shi