This month’s reading selections from the Caribbean, with reviews of Wild Fire by Sophie Jai; The Uncertain Family by Janice Lynn Mather; let the dead in by Saida Agostini; and the Greatest! by Jeunanne Alkins and Neala Bhagwansingh
Wildfires
by Sophie Jai (The Borough Press, 320 pp., ISBN 9780008380342)
Don’t be surprised if more secrets than salvation greet you in the waiting room of grief: this reality awaits Cassandra, WildfiresThe central character, who travels to her family’s home to attend a funeral. In life, her cousin Chevy was mute: in death, the space left by his passing resounds with the echo of the unanswered, the foggy and the unasked. Less a procedurally plotted investigation of domestic drama, Jai’s debut is about the underpinnings that inhabit and haunt every clan of people related by blood. In the throes of turmoil between Trinidad and Canada, torn between dusty decades and difficult decisions, this debut weaves through the lies we tell ourselves to keep the peace. Cassandra, weaving her way through the minefield of visiting relatives’ acid-laced memories, is a sensitively crafted figure for this revelation: an unmistakable anti-heroine.
Kin uncertain
by Janice Lynn Mather (Doubleday Canada, 304 pp., ISBN 9780385697156)
Is there a boundary condition, a threshold when a Caribbean girl becomes a woman? If so, the 18 short intertwining stories of Kin uncertain own that space with passionate inquiry. Across the islands of the Bahamas, these protagonists seize life, or take it from them: from so many stations, a hypervigilant grandmother sits, observing everything that passes. In Mango Summer, hog plum mangoes lose their ubiquitous sweetness all too quickly, their richness drying up against the grief of a beloved sister disappearing in the dead of night. Mather opens wide the doors of synesthetic perception: colors blend into sounds and flavors of the Bahamian palate burst into the mind’s eye. All are implicated in these coming-of-age or loss-of-innocence narratives: disillusionment and raptured delirium, the ultimate growth of meaning in these short fictions is essentially feminist.
let the dead enter
by Saida Agostini (Alan Squire Publishing, 68 pp, ISBN 9781942892281)
Guyana’s Pomeroon River is the deepest of that great country: to witness it channeled in Saida Agostini’s poems is to gather an appreciation for the intense insights of this debut collection. Tracing bloodlines from the wooded shores of the Essequibo to the chill of winter in Maryland, Agostini’s graphics filled the emotional waters with the astrolabe of the heart. You won’t find odd references to family trees here: the poems’ approach is mycelial, a mushroom network of connections that bind, break and rejoin from generation to generation. What emerges is the poem as stark, fundamental testimony: again and again, the speakers of these verses ask: Where in this world can pleasure and purpose be found for the fat black woman’s body? The echoing answers are a spiral of recoveries, voices reaching back into the past, forward into the future, for a wild hope.
The greatest!
by Jeunanne Alkins and Neala Bhagwansingh (Everything Slight Pepper, 42 pp., ISBN 9789769535053)
What stories could our oldest buildings tell if they could talk? Co-authoring team Alkins and Bhagwansingh answer this question for architecture enthusiasts at The Most Magnificent! a whimsical pedagogic meander through the histories and meanings of the seven magnificent structures that surround Trinidad and Tobago’s Queen’s Park Savannah. Sayada Ramdial’s accompanying illustrations beckon as much as the text, imbuing this story of built heritage with gameplay that feels almost interactive. Alkins’ mission in storytelling for young readers has long been to balance stunning design with educational excitement: this output is the crown jewel of her publications to date. It’s also not a misguided attempt: anthropomorphizing history can be tricky, but in these pages, Stollmeyer’s Castle transforms into Sir Stollmeyer, wise and funny: who can argue with a castle that amazes you with its origins?
