Augustown

Starred review from March 13, 2017
The Jamaican novelist and poet Miller (The Last Warner Woman) presents a rueful portrait of the enduring struggle between those who reject an impoverished life on his native island and the forces that hold them in check, what the rastafari call Babylon. The year is 1982, and a teacher cuts the dreadlocks off a child named Kaia because he looks “like some dirty little African.” Ma Taffy, Kaia’s aunt, comforts him with the story of Bedward, an Augustown preacher and forerunner of the rastafari. Sixty years earlier, Bedward’s miraculous attempt “‘to rise up into de skies like Elijah’” was halted by the “Babylon boys” pulling him down “with a long hooker stick.” Like Bedward, Kaia’s mother believes she might escape: the principal of the school has been tutoring her, and after the local college accepts her application, “a certain lightness of being” takes her over, “as if she could close her eyes right now and begin to rise.” After seeing Kaia’s bald head, though, she is instead forced into a confrontation with Babylon. In the end, there is no avoiding “the stone” Ma Taffy describes the poor people of Augustown being born with, “the one that always stop we from rising.” The flashback is telling of Miller’s talent for infusing his lyrical descriptions of the island’s present with the weight of its history.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
A boy's schoolroom punishment opens a window into the roiling, mystical history of a Jamaican community.When Kaia arrives at the home of his great-aunt Ma Taffy from school with his dreadlocks shorn off, it's more than a case of a teacher taking discipline too far. It's a direct attack on the family's Rastafarian heritage, and the incident prompts Ma Taffy to think back on the history of Kingston's Augustown neighborhood and the persecutions two generations past. More specifically, she recalls the story of Alexander Bedward, a proto-Rastafari preacher who in the 1920s captivated the island with rumors that he was able to levitate. And, just as Bedward was attacked by the then-ruling British government threatened by his popularity, Miller suggests that the bigotry persisted into 1982, when the story is set. Miller's excellent third novel is built on sharp, sensitive portraits of key players in what at first seems a minor incident, from Ma Taffy and Bedward to Kaia's teacher, the school principal, and neighborhood gangsters, each of whom are fending off personal and cultural misunderstandings. To that end, they're all subject to the concept of -autoclaps,- Jamaican slang for calamity; Miller returns to this point often, and storytelling suggests that Augustown (based on the real August Town) is a place where the other shoe keeps dropping. Miller insists that Bedward's floating not be interpreted as sprightly magical realism but as a symbol for how the place is misunderstood and how such misunderstandings feed into needless violence: -Consider...not whether you believe in this story or not,- he writes, -but whether this story is about the kinds of people you have never taken the time to believe in.- Despite the novel's relative brevity, Miller captures the ways community, faith, and class create a variety of cultural microclimates.

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Starred review from March 15, 2017
As both the introductory note and epithet doubly insist, August Town, divided into two words, is a real town in Jamaica, made (in)famous for being the founding home of Bedwardism, a short-lived, early twentieth-century religion. Fast-forward to 1982 when teary Kaia comes home to his grandmother-cum-great-aunt Ma Taffy with his dreadlocks, the Rasta symbol of his Nazirite vow, hacked off by his teacher who claims his hair is a sign of insolence. Attempting to calm the bewildered child as well as herself, Ma Taffy imparts the story of the flying preacherman, the charlatan-turned-prophet Alexander Bedward. The racial, political, economic dissonance back then remains just as stifling decades later, repeatedly played out in the lives of Augustown-ies, especially Kaia's mother, who was supposed to thrive, not just survive. Look, this isn't magic realism . . . . This is a story about people as real as you are, Jamaican-born, London-domiciled Miller (The Last Warner Woman, 2012) warns through his indelible characters. You may as well stop to consider . . . whether this story is about the kinds of people you have never taken the time to believe in. Fusing facts with what-could-have-well-been, Augustown is a gorgeously plotted, sharply convincing, achingly urgent novel deserving widespread attention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

This latest from London-based award winner Miller arrives with a flourish owing to the Jamaican setting, echoing Marlon James's Man Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings. But while James's writing is architecturally intensive, Miller uses simple but evocative diction to unfold the tightly focused story of one woman and her community.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2017

In 2014, Jamaican author Miller's The Cartographer Tries To Map a Way to Zion won the Forward Prize for Best Poetry, and Miller's new novel uses assured poetic language to create important historical intersections and strong, realistic characters. The poor Jamaican town of the title features many interesting figures, including Ma Taffy, who is raising grandnephew Kaia; Clarky, the fruit-selling Rastaman; and Bedward, the sinner-turned-saint, who levitated before the eyes of his congregation. The book opens with Kaia returning home from school, his long locs completely gone after his ill-tempered teacher shaved them off, knowing their importance in Rasta culture. The style recalls magical realism, but the novel as a whole is more a blend of folklore representing Africans of the diaspora and their creative use of mythos to survive hardship. Miller also explores Jamaica's racial and economic rifts and the ensuing violence without being preachy, instead working through his characters' experiences. VERDICT Highly recommended, and not just for lovers of African and Caribbean folklore. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in fiction that's grounded in community.--Ashanti White, Fayetteville, NC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017

In 2014, Jamaican author Miller's The Cartographer Tries To Map a Way to Zion won the Forward Prize for Best Poetry, and Miller's new novel uses assured poetic language to create important historical intersections and strong, realistic characters. The poor Jamaican town of the title features many interesting figures, including Ma Taffy, who is raising grandnephew Kaia; Clarky, the fruit-selling Rastaman; and Bedward, the sinner-turned-saint, who levitated before the eyes of his congregation. The book opens with Kaia returning home from school, his long locs completely gone after his ill-tempered teacher shaved them off, knowing their importance in Rasta culture. The style recalls magical realism, but the novel as a whole is more a blend of folklore representing Africans of the diaspora and their creative use of mythos to survive hardship. Miller also explores Jamaica's racial and economic rifts and the ensuing violence without being preachy, instead working through his characters' experiences. VERDICT Highly recommended, and not just for lovers of African and Caribbean folklore. This book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in fiction that's grounded in community.--Ashanti White, Fayetteville, NC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.