“Not only the things that have happened” has an intriguing kinetic typography sort of a cover page and an endorsement on its back by Jeet Thayil (Author: Narcopolis) that it is an “intimate, epic, haunting” work, so it was easy for me to pick it up. But more impressive things about the book are to be found and cherished within these two hard covers, where Mridula Koshy narrates a touching tale about not only the things that have happened, but also the things that are going to happen in the lives of a mother and her son estranged while he was four.

The first thing you would notice on a page of this book is that it has more full stops and block letters than the average novel, courtesy the staccato conversations and descriptions aiding the narrative. Koshy’s prose is rich and confident in stepping up to the challenges of its artifice, making us read - carefully but surely - between the lines (or words per se). From the titles given to the chapters to the conversations between the characters, the book assumes and demands the readers’ understanding of the material, but never does it leave anything incomplete or to their interpretation.

The book consists of two parts happening over a course of 36 hours in Kerala and Mid-West, USA about the last days of a dying mother (Annakutty) in Kerala who still believes her son (Asa Gardner) will come in search of her, and her son’s struggles to know his identity. Though the two narratives never meet or cross each other, they seem like perfect bookends to each other, one incapable of standing up – or have meaning – without the other. Through these two narratives, we get to know about the need to understand our memories or to imagine stories to fill the gaps in our memories.

Through the longing of the mother for her child and the child for his child and for his past, Koshy pays an elaborate ode to parenting in different milieu. However, this book is not just about the mother and her child as there are other important and equally memorable characters along their ways, who constitute their own brilliant pages of history in the protagonists’ lives. Annakutty’s stepmother’s guilt in feeding her own daughter better than her step daughter, Asa’s foster parents’ hostility towards him and Mrs. Oster’s remorse at losing Asa at an earlier age raise introspections on filial relationships. Although, a slightly disquieting side note is that any relationship other than that of parent – son/daughter seem dysfunctional, not that I would hold it against the book.

Really books like “Not Only…” are the reason why we took to reading in the first place, to be mesmerized and seduced by the beauty and poetry in the verse. This is a perfect book in many ways than one. Now if only it rained when I finished this book and opened my window...