The Angels' Share

October 15, 2015
Ellis (Till I'm Laid to Rest, 2010, etc.) tells a fast-paced story of father and son, packed with misadventures and set against the backdrop of contemporary Jamaica. It's a rough day for Everton: first, his father goes missing and he has a fight with his girlfriend. Then, he needs to handle his volatile family while also making it to an important business meeting. The plot already feels breakneck when Everton finds his father (it happens early) and sets off on a whole new quest: to help reunite the old man with a lost love. Along the way, they have plenty of adventures--including running afoul of a group of marijuana growers who may be toiling on property that belongs to Everton himself. Added to that, Everton's relationship with his father--a cranky ne'er-do-well who never had much interest in his son--has a long way to go toward reconciliation. No new ground here, plotwise, but Ellis sets his story in 2008 Jamaica, where "old people are burnt in their homes for no reason at all; stubborn old men are slaughtered by gunmen"--where "it is so easy to get away with murder." This milieu adds a great deal of tension to the book that would be absent if it were to take place in, say, Cleveland, and Ellis is wise to make his plot accessible to attract readers: after all, many will be learning about Jamaica for the first time--a valuable function of this novel. But still, the rhythms are predictable, straight from Screenwriting 101. "I had a devil in me," Everton tells us at one point about his rowdy past. This novel, though well-constructed, could've used a little more devil. A finely built--and often admirable--novel that, nevertheless, feels too familiar.

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Starred review from January 1, 2016

Two-time recipient of the Una Marson Award for Adult Literature, Ellis (Till I'm Laid To Rest) doesn't idle in his opening pages but dives in headfirst. Everton Dorril receives a frantic call from his stepmother about his father, Thomas, who has left to locate a woman he was in love with 35 years earlier. When Everton finds Thomas, he agrees to join him on the journey, taking the chance to spend more time with him despite his resentment; Thomas fathered Everton with a former mistress and has been largely absent from his life. The more characters they meet along the way, the sweeter their obviously rocky relationship becomes, and Everton begins to appreciate Thomas as he comes to recognize his wife's loyalty and love. The novel avoids the maudlin of some coming-of-age stories, and the magnetic descriptions of the father-and-son conversations and encounters and the Jamaican landscape add to the narrative. VERDICT Like Marcus J. Guillory's Red, Now, and Laters, this book will appeal to lovers of Caribbean fiction, but all readers of relationship novels are sure to enjoy.--Ashanti White, Yelm, WA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016
Everton Dorill spent his childhood living in a world separate from his idolized but mostly absent father, Nigel, and Nigel's legitimate family. Now 37, Everton is a successful marketing executive. On the eve of an important presentation, he receives a call from Nigel's wife saying that his father has disappeared, and this is the start of a week-long road trip into new terrain. In contrast to Everton, a town man, Nigel has a deep familiarity with Jamaica outside Kingston, the result of a career spent in the Ministry of Agriculture. And while Everton is cautious and reserved, Nigel is adventurous and charismatic. Now, feeling that his days are numbered, Nigel is on a quest to meet up with a woman he has not seen for 35 years. Everton reluctantly comes along and finds himself being carried away from his well-ordered world and deeper into his father's, achieving some life-altering insights along the way. Ellis writes with an easy grace, and his novel should find favor with readers who are interested in exploring world fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)