Country 14 — Jamaica.
Blurb from goodreads.com, please scroll down for my review.
In the wake of Marlon James’s Man Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings, Augustown-set in the backlands of Jamaica-is a magical and haunting novel of one woman’s struggle to rise above the brutal vicissitudes of history, race, class, collective memory, violence, and myth.
Ma Taffy may be blind but she sees everything. So when her great-nephew Kaia comes home from school in tears, what she senses sends a deep fear running through her. While they wait for his mama to come home from work, Ma Taffy recalls the story of the flying preacherman and a great thing that did not happen. A poor suburban sprawl in the Jamaican heartland, Augustown is a place where many things that should happen don’t, and plenty of things that shouldn’t happen do. For the story of Kaia leads back to another momentous day in Jamaican history, the birth of the Rastafari and the desire for a better life.
My Review
Ma Taffy, who is one of the main characters is an old blind woman looking after her young great nephew, Kaia, relates a series of historical stories while they wait for Gina, the boy’s mother to come home from work. The book jumped from one story to another seemingly without connection. While I was reading the book I didn’t understand the connection with the flying preacher man and rastafarians until later after finishing and it was while I was writing this review that I understood the connection.
I loved the beginning of this book, such interesting characters, especially Ma Taffy, in an interesting but anarchic fictional town but loosely based on the real August Town, an area of Kingston, Jamaica. I enjoyed the writing itself, it is very good, the author describes well the area, the island, etc.
My favourite character was Gina, even though she wasn’t the main character, or even had a large part, she struck me as strong, willing to learn and better herself and her parts in the book were my favourite. I didn’t enjoy the storytelling so much, or should I say, I enjoyed the story telling from Ma Taffy, I just didn’t understand the link between the storyline and the stories. I wanted to know more about Kaia but he wasn’t a big enough part for my liking.
I enjoyed the setting and the descriptions of the town and area.
I normally don’t say much about the endings of books in my reviews, but I found this one to be very sad.
3 stars for this one, recommended for those wishing to read a mystical book set in Jamaica.
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Originally published at http://readinginecuador.wordpress.com on March 8, 2021.
