By Love Possessed

April 16, 2012
Love, pride, loneliness, and poverty are set to the rhythms of Jamaican life in 22 short stories by acclaimed poet and writer Goodison (From Harvey River, a memoir). In “Bella Makes Life,” Joseph doesn’t know what to make of his wife, Bella, who returns from Brooklyn dressed like a Checker cab and newly obsessed with making money; she’s tired of “box feeding outta hog mouth”—the lowest level of existence. An ex-Communist prisoner uses breathing exercises learned from a fallen comrade to get through each day, in “For My Comrades Wearing Three-Piece Suits.” Anna, in “Mi Amiga Gran,” wonders if she’ll become a “worthless, bruk-down skettel,” living on the street if her mother fails to send the rent money from America. Sylvie, seven months pregnant, questions the ethics of attending church to receive food and clothing she desperately needs, in “God’s Help.” Wonderfully colorful Jamaican patois is interspersed throughout, reflecting subtle changes of class and origin in each character’s voice. Stories of love are overly precious and lack the frank sincerity that Goodison exhibits when writing about poverty, despair, and the illusions we create that can become our salvation—or our demise. Agent: Ron Eckel, the Cooke Agency International.

June 1, 2012
Betrayal is the emotional cornerstone of this collection of Jamaican-set stories by poet and memoirist Goodison (English/Univ. of Michigan, From Harvey River, 2008, etc.). Each of these 22 stories--most previously published in U.K. and Jamaican collections--is marked by the lyrical patois of Goodison's characters, who generally hail from the country's lower-middle classes. Her graceful language, however, too often serves moralizing plots. In "House Colour," for instance, a young woman rebuffs a wealthy suitor who's too dim to realize his money doesn't impress her; lovely lines about her "looking around for some spare love lying accidentally somewhere, a kiss left languidly on a smooth surface" are negated with wooden dialogue in which the man boasts he'll "lay siege to your life till you surrender...to me." Well-worn conflicts abound: In "God's Help," a woman rejects a church's charity after she detects a preacher's insincerity; in "Bella Makes Life," a man is at a loss to adjust to his wife's new high standards after she returns from a U.S. trip; in "The Big Shot," a prideful man tries to cover up his affair with a woman he sees as below his station, before receiving his inevitable comeuppance. Those stories come from a 1990 collection; those drawn from a 2005 book showcase more sophisticated conflicts and moral ambiguity. For instance, "Alice and the Dancing Angel" adds a dose of magical realism to the story of a dancer desperate to escape her life's degradations, and "Mi Amiga Gran" follows a young girl's growing self-awareness as her mother's financial support disappears. "I Come Through," told in the form of a famous singer recalling her life story for a reporter, ingeniously caps the collection. It's unfortunate that so many thin tales precede it. Goodison knows the emotional space she wants her stories to occupy, but most are too brief and simplistic to generate much feeling.

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June 1, 2012

Author of the critically acclaimed memoir From Harvey River, a Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year, Goodison has also won the Commonwealth Prize and the Musgrave Gold Medal from the Institute of Jamaica. Her latest work is a collection of interwoven stories about people living in a tight-knit Jamaican town. Goodison opens with "The Helpweight," a strong yet predictable story of unrequited love, then gains momentum and intensity as she tells the story of Henry, a homeless rose seller, and Shilling, a teen who falls in love with a dreamy boy only to have her love shattered. Most intriguing is the title story, which concerns Dottie, a woman so desperately in love that she wills herself to be ignorant about the truth of her relationship with a beautiful man. The collection deals with universal aspects of love but also celebrates Jamaican culture. VERDICT Similar to Jabari Asim's A Taste of Honey, this captivating and poetic collection will appeal to readers of Caribbean and literary fiction.--Ashanti L. White, Fayetteville, NC

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
With this collection of stories united by their connection to Jamaica, poet Goodison (From Harvey River, 2009) aims an unflinching eye at the human heart's foibles and passions and how those can shape a lifetime. In Dream Lover, a woman mourns the loss of her one great love until she returns to Jamaica, bumps into him at a New Kingston nightclub, and must suddenly consider whether she may have been inventing the past. The happy relationship between Sylvie, a pretty girl with her smooth sambo colouring and dark ackee seed eyes, and George is threatened when he's dumped into police lockup during a routine sweep in God's Help. Joseph, in Bella Makes Life, becomes father and mother to his two young children when their mother leaves Jamaica for America, and he runs into interesting complications with women as he begins to question the roles of honesty, respect, and truth in relationships. Alternating between flat-out humor, aching pain, and the confusion of bridging cultures, the stories weave around one another in a rhythmic, engaging palette of language and characters sure to remain with the reader.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)