Book Description...
"“In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once: some cultivated, some simple, some wickedly funny, some deeply melancholic. All of them shine.”—Zadie Smith
Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret—Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.
In “Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,” an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In “Mash Up Love,” a twin’s chance sighting of his estranged brother—the prodigal son of the family—stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In “Bad Behavior,” a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In “Mermaid River,” a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In “The Ghost of Jia Yi,” a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in “Shirley from a Small Place,” a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother’s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital."
Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction’s most dynamic and essential young authors.
Title: How to Love a Jamaican
Author: Alexia Arthurs
Publisher: Ballantine
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:
"How to Love a Jamaican" by Alexia Arthurs
My Thoughts...
What a interesting bunch of interesting entertaining collection of stories that will keep you turning the pages to see what was happening not only in Jamaica but also America. This Jamaica culture was really one intriguing read. I enjoyed reading how each story had a 'person of Jamaican descent with most of the story being of self discover, remembrance and moments of transcendence.' I loved how the read made the reader be caught up in the 'everyday voices that dealt with just everyday life. The reader will get a little bit of it all from such as ...'Who are these brothers and sisters, mothers, old loves and absent fathers?.' Be ready for a read full of not only 'tender but some heartbreaking stories' that will definitely leave you only wanting more of these collection of stories.
What a interesting bunch of interesting entertaining collection of stories that will keep you turning the pages to see what was happening not only in Jamaica but also America. This Jamaica culture was really one intriguing read. I enjoyed reading how each story had a 'person of Jamaican descent with most of the story being of self discover, remembrance and moments of transcendence.' I loved how the read made the reader be caught up in the 'everyday voices that dealt with just everyday life. The reader will get a little bit of it all from such as ...'Who are these brothers and sisters, mothers, old loves and absent fathers?.' Be ready for a read full of not only 'tender but some heartbreaking stories' that will definitely leave you only wanting more of these collection of stories.
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