Fruit of the Lemon

October 9, 2006
Levy's follow-up to the Orange Prize– and Whitbread-winning Small Island
explores how racism reveals itself to a young British-born woman of Jamaican descent, and how the pain can be healed by knowledge of one's roots. Faith Jackson is having a rough go after college: she's fired from her apprenticeship at a prestigious textile designer's and her parents are planning to move back to Jamaica. Though Faith has experienced racism throughout her life, she begins to fear her ethnicity will hobble her career. As she becomes more aware of subtle forms of racism at her entry level job in the BBC costume department and elsewhere, she witnesses a hate crime and, in its aftermath, is sent to Jamaica by her parents for a helpful holiday. It's there, in the second half of the book, that Faith learns a great deal about her extended family and understands why her parents may want to return. Unfortunately, the tone shifts, and what was effective through understatement becomes a rushed unfolding of her family history, complete with diagrams of who begot whom. The change in voice and the narrator's issues with island life (particularly her frustration with its culture) obscure the more poignant aspects of her newfound knowledge.

October 15, 2006
Levy, winner of the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for "Small Island", here delivers a solid meditation on the power of family stories. Faith Jackson begins a career in television with optimism only to be stymied by the casual racism that meets her everywhere in London. Confused, Faith turns to her Jamaican-born parents, but their solutionsgetting married and going to churchdont resonate with her. Trapped between two worldviews, Faith literally takes to her bed until an invitation to visit Jamaica opens a new world of possibilities for her. The rambling, disconnected anecdotes of London life give way to an intricate tapestry of lively family narratives as stories of Faiths ancestors provide a foundation from which she can draw strength. Fans of Zadie Smith will appreciate Levys explorations of race and class but may find it difficult to sympathize with Faith, whose naïveté can be exasperating. A somewhat abrupt ending and slightly flat secondary characters hinder but do not spoil this otherwise solid effort. Recommended for large fiction collections."Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2007
Adult/High School-This book is divided into two major sections. First, readers learn about the protagonist, Faith, and her family's life in England, and that her parents had emigrated from Jamaica on a banana boat, arriving at West India Dock on Guy Fawkes Night and really only knowing England from what they'd learned in school. Life is not exactly as they'd planned it, but over time Wade and Mildred adjust to their new home, get jobs, buy a house, and start a family. They are proud of their children, especially Faith's work in the costume department at BBC, but Faith, who is a credible but sheltered young adult, isn't quite so pleased, as she becomes aware of the hidden and public racism all around her. She decides to visit Jamaica, and the book moves into its second section. Faith meets the family she has known only through letters, photos, and the stories her parents have shared with her. Listening to her Aunt Coral's tales provides her with insight into her parents' lives that she never could have imagined. She makes connections with the people and places of their youth and returns to England with a different perception of her mum, her dad, and herself. None of Faith's Jamaican relationships seems to be deep, but readers sense that maturity is just around the corner, perhaps once she reconnects with her family in Britain."Joanne Ligamari, Rio Linda School District, Sacramento, CA"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2007
A Londoner with Jamaican roots, Levy writes astringently funny and wryly merciful novels about family contretemps, unthinking racism, and the ripple effect of colonialism. The winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for " Small Island" (2005), Levy presents another delectable Jamaican British screwball comedy with edge. After leaving her Jamaican parent's spic-and-span home for a messy communal life with three white roommates, and landing a job in a television station's costume department, Faith is nearly always the only person of color in sight. As her parents think about returning to Jamaica, a place Faith has never been curious about, Levy, a master at hilarious, rapid-fire dialogue, orchestrates one daft yet wrenching situation after another in which Faith is confronted by casual yet corrosive racist remarks. Finally, overwhelmed by hypocrisy, Faith heads to Jamaica to stay with her aunt Coral, and there discovers where she comes from and who she really is. Levy has chosen her title shrewdly: like the lemon, her loaded satire is bright and alluring, but its bite is sharp.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)