The Cycle of Grief in Umami

Laia Jufresa’s first novel, Umami, begins with her young protagonist Ana stating her intentions to plant a ‘milpa’ – a small crop-growing garden – in the courtyard of her family’s home. Ana’s proposed garden saves her from spending the summer at her American grandmother’s house, the site of her little sister’s death.

A novel about abandonment, grief and loss, Umami exudes an air of realism at all times. Instead of the heartache and woe that might be portrayed in more melodramatic prose, Jufresa’s array of characters express deep-set misery in simple, more human ways.

Set in Belldrop Mews, a quirky neighbourhood of Mexico City during the first four years of the 21st century, Jufresa explores the nature of grief using a handful of central characters, all of whom live within the mews.

The novel follows Ana, after the death of her sister, Luz; the academic Alfonso, after the death of his wife, Noelia; Marina, a young painter; and Luz herself, just months before her death. Each character is provided with ownership of an individual timeframe and each character’s narrative feeds into the others.

Jufresa’s narrative hinges upon a reflective town chorus which demands the reader to pay attention and connect the dots on their own. For example, one small detail in Alfonso’s story in 2002 can have a huge impact on Ana’s in 2004, but it’s up to us to make that connection.

Jufresa’s Use of Character

Umami is a largely character-focused novel and Jufresa is clearly a writer who has a knack for creating realistic characters. Yet, there’s more to her motives than immediately meets the eye.

Jufresa’s novel maintains a series of historical and political undercurrents that offer an insight into Mexican society during a time of accelerating globalisation, and many of Jufresa’s characters have been designed to comment on a different aspect of Mexican society.

Alfonso, for example, is an aging anthropologist who specialised in the study of taste and more significantly, umami – one of the five basic tastes. Alfonso’s status as a learned academic is used by Jufresa to explore early Latin American cultures and make contrasts with the present day.

One of the best examples of the way in which Jufresa’s blends personal trauma with wider themes is when Alfonso reflects on the Mexican Peso Crisis of 1982 by its association with his bike crash of the same year. This kind of kinship between the personal and the bigger picture is a real hallmark of Jufresa’s writing.

However, Jufresa’s range is far from limited and she is as apt in depicting adults as she is in portraying children.

Ana, for example, offers the reader an insight into grief from the eyes of a child who generally experiences loss in an entirely different way to her parents. While her mother, Linda, is prone to fits of rage and anger, Ana is more concerned with her milpa and planting of new life.

The Cycle of Grief

Umami, while both endearing and engaging, contains a dark message that lasts from start to finish. The novel infers that while grief can be coped with to an extent, it is a sensation can never be truly overcome.

Throughout the whole narrative, Luz’s chapters are juxtaposed against those of Alfonso, who has long been mourning the loss of his wife. The reader is at once awaiting Luz’s inescapable death and watching the general outcome of it, the grief in which Alfonso is unable to rid himself of. Alfonso is who many of the characters are destined to become and he sits on the narrative like an unshakeable omen.

Umami is ultimately a well-sewn tapestry that requires more than one reading alone to understand the true depth of Jufresa’s prose. Layered in detail and complete with a fine technique, Jufresa has certainly set a high standard with her first literary foray.

If you’re interested in knowing more about Laia Jufresa and her fantastic new book, One World Publications have created a great video with the writer in conversation with her translator, Sophie Hughes.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to hear the views of both of them at a talk at the Southbank Centre in late 2018, alongside other writers Giuseppe Caputo & Samantha Schweblin. In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be taking a look at Schweblin’s first work, Fever Dream…