ABOUT
A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what the younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper, Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin Cukie looks for a father who doesn’t want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.
Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You , Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.
MY THOUGHTS
Loved It!!
I went into this book completely blind just from seeing it everywhere and all I can say is WOW. I love stories about the Caribbean diaspora. If you do too you need to read this one.
In the story which reads like a short story collection, we meet several characters Jamaicans trying to survive life in the USA. The most notable character is Trelawney, a young man trying to deal with identity and what I would say a series of bad decisions. We also meet his parents, brother Delano and cousin Cukie whose stories were equally interesting.
I dont want to put too many spoilers into this review because I want people to read it.
I went into this book completely blind just from seeing it everywhere and all I can say is WOW. I love stories about the Caribbean diaspora. If you do too you need to read this one.
In the story which reads like a short story collection, we meet several characters Jamaicans trying to survive life in the USA. The most notable character is Trelawney, a young man trying to deal with identity and what I would say a series of bad decisions. We also meet his parents, brother Delano and cousin Cukie whose stories were equally interesting.
I dont want to put too many spoilers into this review because I want people to read it.
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