Pirate's Daughter

Swashbuckling matinee idol Errol Flynn finds respite and a haven from his most recent Stateside scandal in Jamaica in the mid-1940s. There he continues his "wicked, wicked ways" with Ida, a biracial teenaged girl who is besotted with the movie star. The result of their union is May--beautiful, feisty, and determined to find her place in the world. Robin Miles offers a flawless performance in this well-crafted combination of history, romance, and political upheaval. Miles flattens her lovely speaking voice in an eerie representation of Flynn, produces plummy British and harsh German inflections, and clips her tones to accommodate various classes of islanders. She creates a precise portrayal of Flynn-era decadence, a young girl's coming-of-age, and the turmoil and brutality of Jamaican politics in the '70s. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

August 6, 2007
Cezair-Thompson conjures the tragic glamour of golden age Hollywood against the backdrop of lusty, turbulent Jamaica in her dual generational coming-of-age saga. Ida Joseph is 13 years old when Errol Flynn is nearly shipwrecked off the coast of her hometown of Port Antonio in 1946. Flynn instantly loves Jamaica and, eager to find a refuge from stateside scandal, purchases an island across from the port. Navy Island becomes the setting for his glittering parties, movie projects and affair with Ida in her senior year of high school. Flynn refuses to take responsibility for the resulting child, May, and after trying to make a go of it in Jamaica, Ida leaves May and heads to New York City, where she marries a wealthy baron friend of Flynn's who purchases the island after Flynn dies. May grows to adulthood on Navy Island, develops something more than a crush on a married family friend 40 years her senior and indulges in drugs and free love. Jamaica's tumultuous progression toward self-governance—with the violent chaos it unleashes on Navy Island—reveals certain hidden truths about the baron. For all the high drama, the reader never feels fully privy to Ida or May, but Cezair-Thompson otherwise succeeds magnificently in evoking a world distant in both time and place.