Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5 stars)
Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew’s debut novel, The Remnants of Rebellion, is both a sweeping family saga and a profound exploration of Kerala’s socio-political past. Spanning generations, it meditates on memory, inheritance, and the reverberations of revolt that endure long after the fires of uprising fade. Published in 2025 by Aleph Book Company, the novel fuses intimate family drama with historical and cultural reflection, offering a narrative that is at once deeply personal and unmistakably political.
Rather than focusing solely on the battlefield or the mechanics of armed struggle, the book turns its gaze to the aftermath—the fragments left scattered across families, communities, and collective memory.
Told with a restrained yet compelling intensity, the narrative pulls readers into the ethical and emotional conflicts of its characters. Its force lies not in grand declarations but in unsettling questions: What is left behind when rebellion falters? How do survivors nurture hope amid ruins? And perhaps the most piercing of all—does a revolution ever truly end, or does it survive quietly, hidden within every act of remembrance and resistance?
Plot Overview
The novel centers on Aleyamma, an artist who, after her grandfather Appacha’s death, inherits his sprawling estate house in Puthuloor. Her return to Kerala sets in motion more than just a homecoming—it becomes a layered unearthing of the past, where family rivalries, concealed histories, and the ghosts of failed rebellions resurface.
The estate itself emerges as more than a backdrop; it stands as a living presence, steeped in colonial residues and saturated with local legend. Early in the narrative, Aleyamma contemplates its hold on her life and memory:
“The house on the hill has fifteen rooms…furniture in rosewood fills the rooms like rich brown chocolate…The room has been fashioned to make assertions—that of a bourgeois, a huntsman, a husband, a colonist, an Englishman.”
Through Aleyamma’s gaze, the reader encounters the fragmented memories of a Syrian Christian Malayali family, their lineage entwined with the rise of Travancore’s rubber plantations, the shadows of British colonial rule, and the searing legacy of the Moplah Rebellion of 1921.
At its core, the novel is about families—their buried secrets, fragile bonds, and contested claims over both legacy and history. Aleyamma’s uncles, Velia Pappa and Cheria Pappa, are rendered with biting dark humour. Velia Pappa, with his prosthetic goat’s eye and peculiar devotion to Elvis Presley, emerges as a figure both grotesque and pitiable.
Cheria Pappa, performing his “Mohanlal mundu theatrics,” embodies a mix of bluster, thwarted ambition, and small-man bravado. Their petty quarrels stand in sharp contrast to Aleyamma’s quiet strength and the tenderness of her connection with Appacha.
The family’s bitter disputes over Appacha’s will expose not only the corrosive power of greed but also deeper questions of legitimacy, belonging, and the weight of patriarchy. As one uncle exclaims in protest:
“We are the sons. Everything belongs to us. The daughter’s daughter is only a distant family member.”
Such lines underscore the gendered exclusions that continue to structure inheritance and power.
Themes
History and Rebellion
The novel’s title signals its deep engagement with Kerala’s turbulent history of revolt, most notably the Moplah Rebellion and the tragic aftermath of the Wagon Tragedy of 1921. The estate house, too, is steeped in this past, tied to the figure of Charles Hitchcock, a British planter said to have been killed by a resentful worker. Among the villagers, this incident survives as folklore, a reminder of how acts of rebellion are retold, reshaped, and reinterpreted across generations.
Memory and Belonging
Aleyamma’s inheritance is not merely material but profoundly emotional. Woven through the narrative are her tender recollections of Appacha—his sleight-of-hand tricks, his tales of the St. Thomas Christians, the deep creases of laughter that framed his face. Yet, her return to Puthuloor also reopens old wounds, compelling her to face unanswered questions: why her mother chose to leave, the fault lines in her parents’ marriage, and the unresolved ambiguities that shadow Appacha’s own past.
Gender and Identity
The novel powerfully traces how women negotiate patriarchy within both the private and public realms. Amma’s experiments with self-fashioning—her “monkey crop” haircuts and bold lipsticks—signal her quiet defiance against convention, while Aleyamma’s refusal to accept her relatives’ caricature of her as a “starving artist” marks a more overt act of resistance. Through such portraits, Mathew highlights the subtle yet radical ways women carve out autonomy, transforming everyday gestures into acts of rebellion against domestic and cultural constraints.
Style and Craft
Mathew’s prose is lush, lyrical, and steeped in sensory detail. Kerala’s landscapes are evoked with striking tactility—mist-draped hills, fish curries sharpened with kodam puli, red-oxide floors gleaming “like the legacy of Kerala’s storied trade with the Portuguese.”
At times her style verges on over-description, yet the density feels fitting for a novel preoccupied with inheritance and memory, where the past seeps insistently into the present.
Structurally, the narrative unfolds in an episodic fashion, shifting between present-day Puthuloor and layered flashbacks to Niranam and Cochin. This non-linear rhythm occasionally slows the pace, but it also reflects the workings of memory itself—fragmented, recursive, and resistant to neat chronology.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
- A richly textured evocation of Kerala’s cultural and historical landscape, rendered with sensory precision.
- Vivid, eccentric characterizations that balance dark humour with poignancy, making even flawed figures memorable.
- A sensitive, layered exploration of memory, inheritance, and the enduring reverberations of rebellion within family and society.
Weaknesses
- Certain secondary characters feel underdeveloped, functioning more as symbolic archetypes than as fully realized individuals.
- The historical thread of rebellion, though evocative, is sometimes less fleshed out than the intricate family drama, leaving parts of the political backdrop underexplored.
Verdict
The Remnants of Rebellion is a powerful and ambitious debut, one that captures the lingering aftershocks of history within the intimate frame of a single family. It is as much a meditation on Kerala’s rubber estates, colonial entanglements, and political upheavals as it is a story of love, loss, inheritance, and the quiet rebellions of individuals negotiating family and identity.
Mathew writes with authority and lyricism, crafting prose that is both dense and rewarding. Though the narrative occasionally demands patience, it ultimately offers a richly layered reading experience—one that lingers long after the final page.