Synopsis:
When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy’s plans don’t include her overzealous, evangelical mother―or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru.
Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. Patsy leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when Patsy arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.
Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.
My Thoughts:
This has to go down as one of my all time favourite books written by a Caribbean author. I heard many people saying that this book was good and they were right. This book spoke to the issue of migration. Many West Indians in the past and even now are still seeking the American dream and although the story spoke to the Jamaican experience as a Trinidadian I can relate to this.
Patsy was a young woman with a dream and hers was a life better than what she had in Jamaica living with her over religious mother "MAMA G" and her five year old daughter Tru. Living in the United States promised an escape and a chance of happiness with her childhood friend Cicely who migrated to the US years before and also who she loves dearly. Upon receiving a VISA, Patsy left everything behind including her daughter and set off to live her life. However, upon reaching America everything is not easy street, instead she meets a life of hardship and pain.
Meanwhile in Jamaica, Tru had to live with her father Roy (who she had little relationship with), his wife Marva and her brothers. Tru's path was very interesting. In the West Indies we talk about children whose parents left them for the US as "barrel children". In Tru's case however, she wasn't even that because Patsy had no communication with her after leaving Jamaica. As Tru struggled with her sexuality and finding herself, we were told of Patsy's struggles to survive in a foreign land.
Patsy's experience was well written and I loved this book for that, because at many parts I could have related her experiences to people I know. This book also highlighted the myriad of social problems that existed and still to some extent exist in Jamaican society. I especially like how the issue of sexuality was written because you really got a deeper understanding of what occurs.
The case of characters were all important in their own way and each had a main significance in the book. very often when books have many characters like this one there is sometimes a disconnect but it worked well in this book.
In all this was a great work of West Indian fiction. I highly recommend it. Very enjoyable indeed,
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