Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab

by Shani Mootoo

Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents, who were raising him in a tree-lined Toronto neighbourhood, separated and his mother, Sid, vanished from his life. It was not until he was a grown man, and a promising writer with two books to his name, that Jonathan finally reconnected with his beloved parent—only to find, to his shock and dismay, that the woman he’d known as “Sid” had morphed into an elegant, courtly man named Sydney. In the decade following this discovery, Jonathan made regular pilgrimages from Toronto to visit Sydney, who now lived quietly in a well-appointed retreat in his native Trinidad. And on each visit, Jonathan struggled to overcome his confusion and anger at the choices Sydney had made, trying with increasing desperation to rediscover the parent he’d once adored inside this familiar stranger.
 
As the novel opens, Jonathan has been summoned urgently to Trinidad where Sydney, now aged and dying, seems at last to offer him the gift he longs for: a winding story that moves forward sideways as it slowly peels away the layers of Sydney’s life. But soon it becomes clear that when and where the story will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney’s haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Queer, Transgender, School

336 pages, Hardcover

First published April 29, 2014

About the author

Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1957 to Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at age 24 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada.

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a bore. I cannot get over how boring this book was. I think I shed a tear from being bored. NOTHING HAPPENED!!!!! Why was it told from Jonathan's perspective? What was this big secret that he was raised by two moms?
UGH. Where do I get my time back?

[Juniper · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmm...maybe 3.5-stars?

okay, so this novel should give readers much to think about. gender identity is a primary theme, and it's become an issue that is being talked about more and more in some societies. this is a good thing. with hope, discussion leads to understanding and acceptance. i do believe that reading fiction leads to stronger or improved empathy. and i think books like this one, or Annabel, will help with these conversations. so on that front, i think mootoo's book is special and necessary. there were moments in the novel that were absolutely beautiful. where i am struggling, however, is with the voices in the book. there are 3 prominent characters, plus supporting players. i didn't find the voices distinct enough from one another - they all blended together and seemed to be the same. mootoo's narrative employs flashbacks and letter writing, and those devices didn't - for me - help solidify her characters' voices any better. i also felt the voices were flat. and given there are some very large and angst-y issues in play, the flatness of voice seemed to create an emotional void. so that was a strange experience. this should have been a very emotional reading experience. overall, i did like the book, so please don't misunderstand me. i was just so very stoked for mootoo's new book...and it was not blow-my-socks-off awesome, as i hoped it would be. but it was good. :)

[McKenzie Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

For more reviews, check out my blog:Craft-Cycle

I received a copy of this book through Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't really know anything about the book going into it. The summary on the back cover sounded interesting enough. Once I started reading, I was really confused. The back cover says Jonathan's parents split up, then his mother vanishes and later transitions into a man. So reading this, I assumed Jonathan was raised by his father. It took forever for me to figure out he was raised by a lesbian couple who then separated (one of whom transitions into a man). The summary wasn't wrong, but was rather vague. The family dynamics were very unclear and confusing to start. Even I, as someone who comes from a "non-traditional" family had to reread sections to figure it all out. It was such an easy fix, it seemed silly to start out so vaguely.

Once I got over that bump, I was ready for the book to get good. Unfortunately, that never happened. "Moving forward sideways like a crab" is the beautiful idea of telling a story from a roundabout way, focusing on all of the surrounding details. This is a great concept, but makes for a very drawn out and dull read.

At one point, Sydney states, "of course one wants relief after suspense, and I must admit that in a life like mine, there seems to be constant suspense and little relief, even now" (187). This pretty much sums up the book. There is so much buildup and it really doesn't lead anywhere. Nothing amazing or profound happens. By the end, the layout is pretty predictable. It ends right about where you expect it to, with little actually occurring. Yes, there is some emotional stuff and relationship stuff, but it was pretty boring.

Also, Jonathan himself was a very irritating character. I couldn't get over how whiny, self-centered, and petty he was. I just kept wanting to slap him and shout, "It's not that big of a deal! Chill out!" He seemed so overdramatic all the time.

There were also moments that felt unrealistic. At one point, some of Sydney's friends visit the house. Jonathan overreacts (big surprise) and starts freaking out, babbling on in the narrative, comparing it to a circus and saying other transphobic things. Then he passes out, one of the visitors is nice to him, and he magically is not transphobic anymore. I'm glad he changed, but it came about so suddenly and awkwardly that it didn't feel real.

Boring book. I bumped it up to 2-stars, because I think it had an interesting idea, but horrible execution.

[sves yvonne]

started reading it because it was on a book list for trans characters but the more I read the more I realized that Sid/Sydney (who is trans) is mostly a story / writing tool for the story. Some parts in the beginning were okay in describing Sydney's experience as an immigrant in Canada. the clashing & contrast of culture in Canada vs his memories & experience of his time in Trinidad but the story is narrated by Sydney's cis white son (only related later on in the story) which is sort of like WHY? What's the point of a cis white person narrating a story of a brown trans person? also transmisogyny throughout the book, particularly in the end of the book where trans women are written as the old "men disguised as women trope". I'm not sure why I kept reading because the writing of trans characters irks me. everything about the trans characters are comments on their bodies, how they are not their 'real' bodies, whatever medical procedures they have been through. basically cis people's narrow idea of what/who a trans person is. I'd much rather have seen this story narrated by Sydney , to see what he felt and saw directly. not indirectly through conversations with Jonathan or Jonathan's own account. the portrayal of the trans (main) character in this book comes down to a spectacle to further the plot narrative.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great narrative construction, interesting positioning and narrative voice. Looking forward to talking about this on Hello Hemlock.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you imagine a more beautiful and provocative beginning to a novel than this:

Surely it is a failure of our human design that it takes not an hour, not a day, but much, much longer to relay what flashes through the mind with the speed of a hummingbird’s wing.

Moving Forward employs multiple viewpoints to tell us the story of a parent and son, and the distances—literal and figurative—they have travelled on their own journeys and to reunite later in their lives. The person through whose voice we hear most of the story is Jonathan, who grew up in Toronto in the 80s with two moms; when the couple break up, his adoptive parent disappears dramatically from his life and he is left with his birth mom, a selfish aristocratic British-born woman absorbed by her work as a writer and unwilling to assuage his feelings of loss and abandonment. As an adult, Jonathan searches for his beloved parent, only to find the person he knew as Sid now goes by Sydney and is living in his native Trinidad. As the title suggests, the story does not move linearly, but rather goes back and forth in time and place (Toronto to rural Trinidad and back).

Mootoo can’t help but write beautifully...

See my full review here: https://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wo...

[lauraღ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time and habits and ways shifted forward and backward and sideways, without reason.

This won't be for everyone; it's extremely slow and very internal; not a lot of plot happens in 300 pages. I think that's what a lot of people expect from literary fiction, and in this book it felt even weightier because there was a lot of introspection and intentional repetition of certain events. But I actually really liked that about it, and even though it made this a very heavy read, it was enjoyable, and hit just as hard as it needed to. 

Jonathan grew up with two mothers, but when he was nine, Sid moved away with no fanfare or explanation. As an adult, Jonathan finds Sid again, now living as Sydney in his native Trinidad. The book takes places years after their initial reconciliation, as Sydney unfolds the details of his life and loves for Jonathan, who still, underneath it all, has a hard time accepting all of the changes his parent has undergone. It's an interesting and really well-crafted novel just in terms of the discussions of gender and identity, Sydney's search for a space where he feels comfortable, and the tug of war between First World Canada with all its amenities and social advantages, and the Trinidad he'd never been able to stop loving. I really enjoy reading about that kind of internal immigrant conflict, especially through a queer lens that I can understand so much. A lot of the book is from Jonathan's POV, but we get a lot of the interiority of Sydney too, which was my favourite thing about it. Seeing his home through his eyes, and slowly getting into the reasons why he had to come back. Trinidad through Jonathan's eyes is also really interesting; an outsider's POV, but not quite, because of all of his visits and how much he loves Sydney. There were so many really unique and striking glimpses of what life is like on the island that I love seeing in literature, or that made me feel a little pang. And I really do adore Mootoo's writing, which is lush and complex, without the affected pomposity that afflicts so much litfic. I really love her use of repetition, of Sydney's walk to the clinic, and seeing it in different ways and learning different things each time. This was a painful read, but also so fresh, and so absorbing. Even though I didn't grow to like Jonathan much, Sydney and Zain and the whole Trini cast just had my whole heart.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Graham Rowat (and a bit by Kevin R. Free), and didn't like it all that much, lol. It didn't ruin my experience, thankfully, but it didn't do anything to heighten it. All of the Trinidadian accents were laughably bad. I'll give Rowat this: usually when non-Trinis attempt the accent, they usually end up doing a bad Jamaican one. He didn't! Instead, this was... a bad Irish accent with a supposedly Caribbean twang. I don't know, I'm not going to dunk on this guy too much. But any time he voiced anyone other than Jonathan, it made me yikes.

But as I said, that didn't sour the experience. Mootoo's lovely writing outshone everything, including my minor nit-picks about unanswered questions. Huge kudos.

Content warnings: transphobia, misgendering, homophobia

[Naori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think 3.5 is more like it....I’m not sure how to approach this one. Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night is one of my all time favorite books, and based on the subject matter I thought this book would be similarly provocative. She has a deftness with circling literary conversations of gender identity in her work and she did do a profound job of this here. There were only two things that I needed in order to really bathe in this book. The first was basic context. She doesn’t make clear from the beginning that main character who is transitioning was in a lesbian relationship. It really reads as though it was a heterosexual union and therefore I got a quarter of a way through the book before I completely understood we were talking about an F/M rather than M/F. It changes a lot about understanding the intricacies of the relationships in the novel and it’s geographies (I.e. the social realities surrounding gender transformations in Trinidad). But really I was more disappointed that the prose was so, so, so much less lyrical than some of her other work. Most of the time when I read her writing I feel like I could physically gorge on it, but this was somewhat pedantic. It would definitely work as a good study in gender fluidity & trans-formation, which is often hard to find earnestly represented in writing, especially coming out of a transnational space.

I feel in some ways like I need this one to sit with me awhile and that I might come to a deeper appreciation of it later on. She does start out with a beautiful opening that was evidence of why I love her writing...

“Surely it is the failure of our human design that it takes not an hour, not a day, but much, much longer to relay what flashes through the mind with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings” (Mootoo 2, 232).

I will have to let this one marinate....

[K.S.C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actually DNF this because it became tedious and did not spark joy. The writing was at times confusing (first person narrative jumping between two characters without clear delineation) and worrying in its portrayal of a transgender character. It kind of implies that Sydney transitions because “homophobia is hard.”
Which is a weird narrative and a very heterocis one based on the idea that you could “make” gay people straight by changing their gender and that is not how sexuality or gender work.

Anyway - I read enough other reviews that indicate the tension is never really resolved and the writing continues to be tedious to make the decision to stop at page 230. Life is too short to read poorly written books.

Shame too, because it’s an excellent premise. Just needed some serious heavy-lifting in the editing AND sensitivity reading by actual trans people.

[hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

a beautifully layered novel.

it tells a complex story of love, home, family, identity..

in the story of Sydney, I think it straddles really well the conflict/tension between life in Trinidad and in Canada - what is gained, and what is lost, thru emigration. draws out the tangled subtleties of experience... the desire for belonging, connection and authenticity.

and thru Jonathan, a different perspective, angle. both that of a child, and of a relative outsider adult.
he maybe kinda serves as commentary/interpreter at times.

I think it describes really well, almost incidentally but very deliberately I suspect, some of the strands of how Anglo-European colonial/imperial values impose on BIPOC gender and sexuality expression.
at the same time it gives space to a broad experience of gender, trans and non-binary identities.
and how the dominant binary construction of sex and gender limits and controls so many.

"it was easier to change myself, than wrestle with society"

really stood out, and resonates with the experience of being pushed towards a binary pole, whatever your identity.

I found it really interesting the way Sydney describes their experience, almost objectively/from outside of their own body.
this felt like more than simply the fact that they were telling Jonathan the story.
I think this links back to navigating, and being forced to fit, systems - that your identity and experience of life, love, attraction , gender might not fit the options available within the societies in which we live, including the kinda neocolonial concept of 'transition' trans+ people are expected to perform.

I thought the novel was very well constructed around parallel threads that drew it forward, and drew a readers interest to keep going, find out the details bit by bit - Jonathan's search for parent, the slow reveal to Jonathan of Sydney's story and answers to some of his questions, the slow reveal and account of Sydney's life and their navigation of it (to readers), the question of Zeyn's death (and life).
not quite mystery/thriller, but elements of both I think, and created a kinda energy and momentum and even compulsion.

🦀

the relationship between Zeyn and Sydney is a really nice one, and the best in the novel.
also a really sad one - the loss of Zeyn too early, and unnaturally without recourse.
(to lose a childhood best friend and sweetheart 💔)

very strong as a counterpoint to Jonathan with his need and petulance that his parent isn't/wasn't what he wanted.

🦐

the son Jonathan is entirely unlikable to me, self centred, entitled, disrespectful of Sydney, disrespectful of local tradition, and he comes off as particularly trans antagonistic around 80 percent in.

as Jonathan writes, I'm not sure about him as a cis man, being the voice for a cis woman and a trans man.
(NB he isn't the actual author!). tho he also comes off as genuinely trying to understand the people and their relationship.

🦀

accessed as an audiobook from a local library.
I did not take to the main reader at all - probably didn't help how I related to the character of Jonathan!
I guess given that, my overall take and rating of the book is some testament to the quality of the ideas, story and it's telling by the author.

[Savita Ramsumair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful

A beautiful local story that helps us to understand some aspectsof Trinidadian, Hindu culture. Whilst I may not agree with certain issues, Shani is nevertheless a great story teller.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surely it is a failure of our human design that it takes not an hour, not a day, but much, much longer to relay what flashes through the mind with the speed of a hummingbird's wing.

Jonathon Lewis-Adey was raised in a loving home in Toronto by his biological mother -- an aristocratic, British-born writer of some renown -- and her live-in girlfriend, Sid. It was the affectionate Sid who primarily tended to the boy while India worked on her latest novel, so it was upsetting to Jonathon when his two Moms started fighting, and devastating when Sid disappeared from his life without a trace when he was nine. As an adult, after some success as a writer himself, Jonathon tracked Sid down to where she had returned to her homeland of Trinidad and was shocked to discover that his erstwhile Mom's loving eyes were now set in the face of a stooped and aged man known as Sydney.

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, besides being a totally evocative phrase, is the perfect title for this novel. Jonathon periodically visits Sydney for nine years after their initial reunion, always trying to discover the same whys -- why did Sid drop out of his life and why did she then become a he -- but although they spend long hours talking on a seaside veranda, Sydney always reverts (crablike) to the same two themes: his longterm friendship with Zain -- a Muslim girl he met when they attended the same girls' school together as teenagers -- and a snowy walk he once made to the Irene Samuel Health and Gender Centre in Toronto. Just as Jonathon hears these two stories over and over, sometimes with extra information added, the reader also repeatedly hears them with the same frustration: they don't really answer the whys.

Sydney and I stared at each other. Then, as if he knew my mind, he said, perhaps Jonathon, you've been looking for simple explanations. But there is hardly ever a single answer to anything. And isn't it so that the stories one most needs to know are the ones that are usually least simple or straightforward?

Sydney spoke in a soft voice, calculating his words. Contradictions are inevitable, he continued. You listening to my story is yet another angle; my story is incomplete, you see, Jonathon, without your interpretation -- over which I have little control.

Eventually, Jonathon receives the call he's been dreading: Sydney's health is failing and he would like his son by his side. When Jonathon arrives in Trinidad this time, Sydney expands on his stories, and once Jonathon gains access to Sydney's journals and Zain's letters, he begins to understand, and is able to process this understanding by using Sydney's stories as fodder in his own writing.

In Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, Shani Mootoo has created a fascinating character with Siddhani/Sydney: as a closeted gay teenager in conservative Trinidad, she was conflicted about refusing to conform and also not wanting to be seen as different. She thought it would be freeing to emigrate to Canada -- where she could pursue her painting out from under the yoke of her family's expectations -- but soon realised that it's not just the Toronto winters that are cold: she had somehow traded a loving and tight-knit community of family and friends for a lonely and anonymous existence in a place where she doesn't even know the names of her neighbours. There is much lovely writing about both the snows of Toronto and the sunsets of Trinidad (though there is much more affection in the sections about the people and setting of Trinidad), and I was very interested in following along on Jonathon's journey of discovery, but there was just something missing in this book.

It might be because I wasn't really satisfied with the whys (and this is spoilery): Even if I believed that Sid could have left Jonathon without a good-bye or later visits because India insisted on it (and Sid knew the parting would be too hard), it would have been so much easier for Sydney to be the one to make contact with the grown Jonathon. And as for the why of the gender change: I can understand "man trapped in a woman's body", but that's not what Sid/Sydney ever says -- it's more like "I like wearing men's clothes so people don't think my mannerisms are weird and my breasts ruin the line of a dress shirt". I'm open to transgender storylines but this just left me confused; I think Mootoo could have served Sydney better by eventually crabwalking him toward explanations that would promote understanding. And Jonathon was just too wishy-washy: he refused to ever come right out and ask Sydney for answers and seemed to be perpetually stuck in the mindset of an abandoned nine-year-old.

Overall, this Giller Prize finalist was an intriguing concept with some vivid imagery that didn't quite work for me.

[Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

“We had intuited...that this would come to pass, but I saw that, even so, death is untimely, and in the very moment one is inevitably unprepared.”

[Heather(Gibby) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Shani Mootoo's writing style. She tackles difficult subject matter head on, and explores the difficult emotions most people feel uncomfortable talking about. This book explores the lives of a transgendered person, and the child that was left behind. It also looks at cultural divides.

The beginning is a bit confusing, as I struggled to figure out whose voice I was reading, but once that is figured out the story moves through a story where both character's struggle through their search for themselves.

[sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Look at the crabs," and she had answered, “That's you, Sid, that's just how you move.” I had heard her correctly, but I responded lightly, “Did you say stealthy, like a cat?”
“No, you fool,” she said. “Sideways. Sideways, like a crab.”
I teased her: “Oh, you have to talk louder. The waves and the wind. I can't hear you.”
As I woke, she was chiding and teasing, “You have to clean your ears. I can't talk any louder. You want me to lose my voice or what? You move like a crab, is what I said. But learn to walk like me. Like a cat. One foot in front of the other.”

-- i.

“You can't live in two places at once—it's like having two lovers, she said. You're bound to be unfaithful to both.”

It took one book for me to realize that Shani Mootoo can never disappoint, literally. This is only the second novel of hers I've read, but after Cereus Blooms at Night, I would trust her with my life. The diversity and representation in her works are A+; the storyline is compelling; the characters are interesting and well developed. So it's no surprise she did it again with this novel.

-- ii.

I would tell him that he was, however, about to find out that he was incapable of understanding certain things that might have seemed obvious before. He was about to find, for instance, that he was incapable of stopping the forward movement of time, and of reversing it. The young man on the plane would no doubt remove his hand from mine and look at me as if I were mad. He would say, “But who doesn't know that it is impossible to stop time or reverse it, or advance it by even a fraction of a second more? Only a fool, that's who.” I would answer that it was one thing to intellectually know the impossibility, but quite another to face the reality and the unfairness of it, and still more difficult to accept it.

One thing that particularly intrigued me regarding this novel is Jonathan's journey and how he comes to terms with his parent's, Sid-now-Sydney, sudden disappearance from his life, only to discover years later she became a transgender man. I loved his progression throughout the novel. In the beginning, like any typical person who was left by a parent would think, Jonathan cannot understand why when the parent is dying (because Sydney was at death's door literally), he still can't mention the ten years Sydney raised him, and never mentioned why he left in the first place. By the end of the novel, after a lot of soul searching, he comes to the realization that he was there all along in between Sydney's final words and his letters/journal entries. Jonathan's character development is very complex and I really liked the way it was mapped out throughout the novel.

-- iii.

“But you know, Jonathan, that is something I could never quite get used to when I was in Canada. That pervasive sense of aloneness: you could live in a building with seventy units and not make friends with a single person in it. I also found that, in Canada, even among friends, independence was practised and appreciated. Even among lovers, even among family members. The question I always ask as I think of that day is not how could any human live in such a climate, or why; but rather, how could one have lived in a city for a period of almost twenty years, yet have not one soul she could ask to accompany her on a mission such as mine?”

The novel also touched a lot upon culture and often compared Trinidadian and Canadian culture in a way, because the two cultures intertwined made up Sydney's character so thoroughly. He could not be Trinidadian without being Canadian and vice versa. I really loved the way culture was intertwined in the novel.

Overall, the novel was great, I was very pleased with all its aspects; the writing and development especially. Mootoo's novels are so unique in their own ways, and I would always recommend picking up anything of hers. Even if you're more for YA, or fantasy, or thriller, she'll literally change all of that for you, because that's how great of a storyteller she is.

-

Pundit again uttered words of prayer, and I again told Sydney that I saw that I was in the stories that he'd told me, that I had figured in his life all along, and that I wanted him to know that I did not think, as he'd said in his last entry in the notebook, that he “ran away, gave up” or “failed.” On the contrary: precisely because of the choices he had made, he was my hero, and I loved him no matter what.

[Tshepiso · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab is a book I could have liked. On paper, its themes of intersectional trans identity and complex parent-child relationships sound fascinating but Shani Mootoo's framing didn't connect with me.

My first and biggest problem with this story was its narrator, Jonathan. This novel is about the life of an Indo-Trinidadian trans man but is primarily told through the perspective of a cis straight white Canadian. I understand that this was an artistic choice by Mootoo, but Jonathan was an uninteresting character. When not being blatantly transphobic Jonathan's inner life was dull and whiney.

Mootoo's circular narrative structure also didn't do much for me. Like the title suggests time in this book often moves sideways as the narrative rehashes moments and skip around rather than moving linearly from beginning to end. This literary device while something I'm sure I could write a solid academic paper on didn't enhance the story for me.

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab did have fleeting moments of intrigue, especially when it focused on the perspectives of its queer POC characters, but the vast majority of it just didn't work for me.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sid emigrates from Trinidad to Canada not for wealth but to live freely as a lesbian. Her well-to-do family in Trinidad has trouble accepting her decision, and wish she'd just settle down like other Trinidadian women. In Canada, Sid becomes a second & cherished mother to Jonathan, her partner's son. But when Sid & India's relationship falls apart after ten years, Jonathan is left searching for his beloved Sid for many years.

So the novel contains both immigrant and gender/sexuality themes, dealing with identity in very interesting ways. As the title foretells, the narrative is extremely non-linear, flitting back and forth and sideways in time to slowly reveal Sid's life story. The narrative arc can be a little frustrating but is ultimately worthwhile to read about the terrible sacrifices Sid makes in her life to live openly.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book a good rating primarily based on the subject matter, but I can't do it. It's disjointed, and uses a couple of plot devices that ruined the story for me. These were the injection of a sudden intense romance that seemed to come from absolute nowhere and the son writing passages that imagined a physical love between his parent and her friend. I didn't see the point to either and they detracted from the main theme for me. The writing is beautiful, however, so I can't say I didn't enjoy the book at all.

[Anthony Bidulka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a unique way to tell this story, in many ways quite unexpected, touching and poignant. The only drawback I found was that just as the narrator felt that part of the story being told to him by his mother/father was taking too long and suffered from unnecessary repetition, so does the reader. But generally a good story, interesting characters who don't always do what you expect them to, and great atmosphere and sense of place.

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is interesting, and thought provoking, and well written, and while I understand the narrative choice of having the primary narrator telling the story of the trans character, rather than having the trans character tell it himself, it still bothered me somewhat.

[kp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay. Strangely unmoving, despite a good premise.

[Cristina Hutchinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel moved sideways and not forward. Too slow and the narrator had zero voice. It’s unfortunate because I thought the topic would be really intriguing but this just didn’t appeal to me.

[Ellen S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very moving story of love, parenting, and friendship, as well as transgender issues and sexual orientation and transition. Set in both Trinidad and Toronto, the details of life, landscape, and culture in Trinidad draw in readers like me who are not familiar with that setting -- and I believe they will also ring true to people from that culture. The characters and story evoke empathy, and I find they stay with me long after finishing the novel. The story has two protagonists: Sid (a nickname for a longer Indian woman's name), aka Sydney, and Jonathan, and the story is told in both their voices, moving back and forth in time, "sideways like a crab." Sid, daughter of a conservative, well-to-do Hindu family in Trinidad, emigrates to Toronto to pursue her art and also live as a woman who loves women -- both hard to do at home. But she also feels alienated in Toronto; the many references to walking in the cold and snow symbolize, I think, her sense of feeling "out in the cold" -- in addition to being the actual experience of immigrants to Canada from warm climates. Sid enters a long relationship with a (white) British novelist, who becomes pregnant by choice, and becomes a loving second mother to this child, Jonathan, until he is about 9 years old. Then her partner asks her to leave, and Sid cannot face saying goodbye to Jonathan or telling him why she needs to go. He feels abandoned and later, as an adult and a novelist himself, he begins searching for Sid -- finally finding her back in Trinidad, now a man, Sydney. Sid decided to go through with the sex-change in Toronto, after receiving financial help (and tacit encouragement) from her childhood friend, a woman whom she loves although she cannot speak her feelings. Jonathan visits Sydney several times over nearly a decade, making his final visit when Sydney is dying -- the present time of the book -- and wants to tell his story. Jonathan wants to know why "Sid" left him, but Sydney has even more to tell; his story emerges in his own words, through conversation and quotes from his notebooks, and also through Jonathan's reflections on what is happening. The reader is drawn in, gradually and irrevocably -- and we learn about the stories people tell (to themselves and others) as well as what they do not tell. Mootoo's writing is fluent and vivid, both about people and about nature (flowers, birds in flight, the sea and the sky). This book can (and perhaps should) be read as part of "Mootoo's ongoing literary project of giving voice to sexual minorities with brown faces from hot countries," as Anupa Mistry wrote in the Globe and Mail (May 16, 2014, updated May 12, 2018). To me, however, it is also a story with wider and deeper implications -- the human search for love, identity, and meaning, and ways to cope with loss. I highly recommend this book.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab surfaced back to my attention as I was interested in reading Shani Mootoo's Polar Vortex and realized that I had actually read another one of her older works. Although it's been a few years, the imprint of the book on my mind is still significant, the title is quite fitting both in the way that the characters progress through their internal journeys/epiphanies (fairly awkward and not always graceful but reaching the destination finally) and also the manner in which the full story unfolds. The story pivots between Trinidad and Toronto as well as past and present as adult Johnathan tries to press his transitioned ailing parent into giving him some answers and closure.

Sid's experience growing up in Trinidad, close relationship with childhood friend Zain, move to Canada, lesbian relationship with a white woman (reminds me of Carmen Machado's In the Dream House: A Memoir), being transgender and subsequent transition journey to Sydney in Toronto are given utmost tenderness and respect by the author. In particular, Zain's affirmation by giving Sid money for the surgery and Zain's subsequent fate really moved me. There is also a scene that sticks in my mind of a transitioning Sydney helpless and agonized wandering on the cold wintry streets of Toronto.

[ebookclassics · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jonathan was nine when his two mothers separated and deeply feeling the loss of his mother, Sid, he always wondered why she didn’t attempt to contact him after the separation. To claim him as her son. Many year later, Jonathan tracks down Sid who is now Sydney and living in his home country of Trinidad. Over the course of nine years, Jonathan visits Sydney and learns more and more about Sydney’s struggles with identity and belonging, and the mysterious circumstances that led to the death of his childhood best friend, Zain.

The themes about gender identity, identity through loved ones and immigration in Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab intrigued me, but I found it difficult to stay engaged. The author slowly peels back the layers of the story concerning Sydney’s transformation and the death of Zain in a manner I could appreciate for its creative structure, but mostly I found repetitive. Half-way into the book, I was tired of Jonathan’s obsession with Sydney and Sydney’s obsession with Zain, and it was a bit of relief when I finished the book.

[Gayle Slagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab by Shani Mootoo is an exceptional novel about a timely subject that is rarely addressed. The plot revolves around Jonathan Adey who was nine when his lesbian mothers separated and his mother, Sid, disappeared from his life. As a grown man, Jonathan reconnects with Sid, only to find that Sid is now Sydney, who has transitioned into a male. When the novel begins, Jonathan has been summoned to the bedside of a dying Sydney, who lives in his native Trinidad. Sydney tells Jonathan a rambling story in which Sydney attempts to explain his life to Jonathan. The result if a heartfelt narrative of Sydney's life which provides a keen insight into the life of someone who was never felt happy in their skin as a child and as a young woman. While the plot is well-developed and honest, the main attraction of the book to me is Mootoo's wonderfully beautiful use of language and descriptive images, both of which are absolutely stunning. If you love words, this one will leave you well satisfied,

[Princess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written book that I savored. I tend to read quickly but this book doesn't allow for that. The language is sumptuous and languorous, much like I'd expect time to behave when someone close to you is terminally ill then dies and arrangements need to be made. The rest of the world might still be going, but the griever feels his world stop as he examines and re-examines everything he knows and doesn't know and wishes to know. Jonathan is trying to make sense of Sydney's life and his place in that life. Sid left when Jonathan was a boy and after searching, he found Sydney in Trinidad. Jonathan is desperately searching for answers and Sydney seems to keep telling the same story in slightly different ways. The answers are buried in that story. Sydney's life is revealed through diaries and letters that Jonathan tries to make sense of. Shani Mootoo does an incredible job drawing characters that are beautiful and flawed. My favorite is Zain.

[Taneeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book on my shelf for a long time - finally read it! It was great to see the layers - dealing with issues of identity (both racial and sexual), migration and immigration, religion. I found the portrayal of one of the only LGBTQ+ people in the book to be quite off-putting at some points - especially in their treatment of their own community - but maybe that goes along with the whole issue of identity, especially as they were living in two different environments.

One interesting thing was how much I enjoyed Jonathan's narration. Usually it's a white guy speaking in the voice of a person of colour, so it was nice to see a palatable, introspective, thoughtful character (even if it's kind of rare) portrayed.

I'll admit I was confused by the flipping back/forth (and maybe it took away from the story a bit for me), but eventually as it all melded together it was fine.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the flow of language in "Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab"... but I found it a difficult book to get into. I found the opening chapter a little confusing as to who the characters were and the relationships.
It is a unique story with many themes - transgender, friendship, family, love, fear, being authentic...

Jonathan searches for Sydney/ Sid - and ultimately finds a charming, man... Si finally shares his story and it opens up answers, reasons and understanding for Jonathan.

There were parts of the story that were emotional as it related the fact that to be ones own authentic self can be painful and difficult. Sid's relationship with Zain was one of secrets and hiding.

A sad story.... though-provoking...

[Helen A Hosein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this five stars for being a rare example of much needed LGBTQ+ representation in Caribbean literature. Indeed, it was beautifully written, and bore a vivid likeness to the Trinidad I know and love, warts and all. The protagonist's transphobia, however, made it hard to read, especially as Jonathan persisted in misgendering Sydney, even as he claimed to love him. The failure of a trans person's closest loved ones to truly see them as they see themselves is heartbreaking. I had hoped that Jonathan would come around, beyond tolerance, to true acceptance of Sydney by the end of the book, but the narrative fell short of that resolution. I was left feeling that Sydney, like all trans folks, deserved better than the treatment given in this book.