The title of Kevin Jared Hosein’s novel is derived from a mourning ritual in which rice balls are left out for the hungry dead while the living forgo all worldly pleasure. It’s a good fit for this beautiful yet unceasingly dismal portrait of mid-1940s Trinidad, in which abject poverty, colonialism, and recent war-time occupation have squeezed joy from the landscape and the people alike, leaving tragedy and loss as the most salient features of either.