In August of 1972, President Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of Uganada’s Indian minority, giving them 90 days to get out of the country. Many of these were UK citizens, and some 27,000 emigrated to Britain. Of the other refugees who were accounted for, 6,000 came to Canada. Mallee Stanley’s debut novel, You Can’t Clap With One Hand, tells the story of one such family.

The story is set in Kampala, in a South Asian household where boys are expected to take over the family business and girls are expected to marry. Gulli, the eldest, has other plans. She wants to be free from her father’s domineering ways and she doesn’t want to end up like her mother, exhausted and depressed from years of child-bearing. Clever enough to outwit her father, Gulli manages to avoid being pressured into an early marriage and trains to be a nurse.

In spite of her career aspirations, Gulli falls in love with a young man who, although handsome and ambitious, has some of her father’s traits. He doesn’t like the idea of his wife working and when they eventually have a daughter, he convinces her to quit her job. They have a second child, a son, and Gulli tries to find ways to reconcile herself to a life that is not working out as she hoped, as much as she loves her family. In the meantime, she observes with disappointment the changes in her siblings, especially her sister, Seema, who was her closest ally when they were young. Seema marries a Canadian and the two sisters become estranged for years.

The background to the family saga is the precarious political situation in the country, especially after October 1962 when the British government gives up control of Uganda and grants it independence. Resentment against South Asians, who own 90% of the businesses and dominate the economy, has been building for years, and families like Gulli’s fear what might happen once the British leave. Indian shopowners and entrepreneurs begin selling off their assets and moving their money out of the country. Gulli is particularly concerned about her daughter, amid stories of children being taken and disappeared. She incessantly urges her husband to emigrate; his refusal to consider it, along with his blinkered optimism that nothing terrible will happen to them, eventually drives a wedge between them that time does not heal.

You Can’t Clap With One Hand reads like a memoir, and I had to keep reminding myself while reading that Stanley, the author, did not live this life herself. That’s how realistic the story feels; the research is impeccable, the characters are believable, and the narrative as a whole is completely engaging. I cannot recommend it too highly and am eagerly looking forward to the next book by this remarkable author.

You Can’t Clap With One Hand: A story of a South Asian family in Uganda, is available as a Kindle Edition on Amazon.ca.