What’s interesting to me is the presentation of culture and the immigrant experience. Returning to the theme of meals, food is felt. I found myself salivating at the page, but equally sparked with a hunger for what food can and does represent.

There exists an awareness of identity and how the politics within it permeate all aspects of our lives. The novel shows what it is to grapple with culture, belonging and creating a sense of agency within that.

“Remember when the city felt like it was ours?”

Form is the breakout star across the novel. In Part II, dissanayake chooses to implement sprawling passages of poetry as a narrative device. Functionally, poetry has since time immemorial been an archival medium. One that merges the power of a lived past, with the hope of imagined futures. I think of Ocean Vuong’s work in the effect of lavish metaphor to capture what is oftentimes indescribable.

My breath is the breeze.”

dissanayake challenges the reader to perceive story as a living thing. Form can be considered an identity in itself, it’s observed, taught and adopted as a methodology for reception. The section titled ‘THE ISLAND’ doubles as its moniker – it is an island of poetic language.

A prominent motif throughout the work that I loved is the link between television, time and how we pass it. Film and television are both coping mechanisms of escape, markers of key moments and portals into dreamlike worlds we aspire to inhabit.

“It’s just past three o’clock, which means Teletubbies on TV3 and Kipper on 2 – stupid shows for little kids. I’ve got half an hour before Sticky TV comes on and then I can watch Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.”

They mark routine, whether in their scheduled programming or in our return to them in times of need. Grief has a televised nature. We watch it, and participate in it, but are always acutely aware of its surreal nature, how quickly it interrupts the routine of the regular and demands our attention.

dissanayake uses place to create one of the novel’s most remarkable features. As someone who has yet to have the pleasure of visiting Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington, the novel brings it to life for me. The machinations of the city are artfully captured, and what rings as most compelling is each character’s relationship to place, and its compounding meaning to self.

From a writer’s perspective, debut novels are a ground for discovery. An exercise in unpacking craft and honing it into an ironclad voice. I’m biased in having fortunately heard dissanayake read from the novel in person, an experience that created a new lens to view the work – a tangible, transportative feeling. While it can be hazardous to merge the author and their character’s, dissanayake’s embodiment of Devendra, in that moment, breathed life into the process, and the excavatory nature of writing where we carve parts of ourselves for refinement into the work.

“Yeah, but do you… rinse first. Then wash. Then rinse again?”

Like any great chef or poet, dissanayake shows that process is pivotal to outcome. Through its process, When I open the shop triumphs in decentering Western modalities of storytelling. It offers something, perhaps not necessarily ‘new’, but deeply authentic.

To return to my opening preface, I’m not sure if this can be considered a critique of the novel. Rather, an unveiling of how I experienced it and a note of joy in what the novel stirred up within me as I traversed its pages.

What stays with me is a literary feast, caringly prepared, each ingredient carefully selected. dissanayake’s words slow-cook across every page to deliver nourishment that feels like home.