She's Gone

January 1, 2007
In his debut novel, Jamaican writer Dawes unites Kofi, singer and lyricist of the Jamaican Reggae band Small Ax, and the equally last-nameless Columbia University sex researcher Keisha on the dance floor of a beachfront Carolina club, but can't make them connect fully, with each other or as characters. With sparks flying (and over the protestations of the ambitious bass player Pedro), the two decamp to Spanish Town in the Greater Antilles, where Keisha takes a job in a private high school and Kofi, inspired by rubbish scavengers, composes social lamentations. When word comes that Kofi's Aunt Josephine is on her deathbed, the two rush to the Jamaican backwater of Castlevale to find the old lady holding off the inevitable until she has had a chance to fill Keisha in on her nephew's complicated genealogy. Kofi grieves by purging himself with bags of oranges, and Keisha, feeling spurned, travels deeper in-country, and ends up dissuading a would-be rapist by means of projectile vomiting. She returns to Spanish Town to bid Kofi farewell, but secondhand tidings of a pregnancy lure him into stalking her across the Caribbean. Dawes then maps out Keisha's South Carolina backstory, but all of the attributes of these two characters-from Kofi's Ghanian roots to Keisha's tardily-recovered molestation memories and abuse at the hands of former beau Troy-don't gel.

February 15, 2007
A checkered romance between a Southern social science researcher and a Jamaican reggae musician is the subject of this debut novel from the Ghanian-born Dawes. Keisha meets Kofi, the scion of a wealthy but troubled Jamaican family, at a South Carolina club where his band is playing, and they are immediately attracted to each other. He follows her to New York, where she is involved in a research project, and she eventually follows him to Jamaica. There, her history of involvement in destructive relationships collides with his bouts of depression, resulting in a breakup despite her pregnancy, and she returns to South Carolina. A drawn-out cat-and-mouse game ensues, with Kofi pursuing Keisha and Keisha rejecting him. By turns sensual and painful, violent and tender, the novel explores love in the very real context of the human psyche, featuring two people who in the end don't necessarily triumph over their pasts but instead realize their willingness to work toward overcoming the history and habits that would push them apart. Recommended for public libraries.Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2007
Keisha, recovering from an abusive relationship, meets a Ghanian-born Jamaican reggae singer at a nightclub in Columbia, South Carolina. Kofi's obvious emotional needs are a strong contrast to her former boyfriend's brutish chilliness. But when Keisha consents to return with Kofi to Jamaica, she discovers that Kofi has his own emotional limitations. He warns her that women leave him when they realize that they cannot be satisfied with what he is willing to give them. Both are rooted and rootless at the same time, tied to their places of birth and culture but wandering in search of a place to belong--urged, encouraged, and berated by a chorus of manipulative relatives and relationships. When Keisha returns to the U.S., it is Kofi's turn to chase her across the upper continent. Dawes, a Ghanian-born Jamaican author, offers vibrant characters and locales, from Jamaica to the American South to the urban North, in this diaspora of black culture and strong emotions, bordering the fine line between love and madness between two troubled people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)