From the Blue Mountains to the Corentyne Coast -and the Islands between: A Book of Caribbean Novels Reviews: Welcome to the World of Caribbean Authors and their Stories!

By J. Wynner

While offering only a glimpse into Caribbean novels, it is hoped that the reviews in this book will familiarize readers with some of the region’s authors and their works. And that non-regional as well as regional readers will want to search out other outstanding writing from the Caribbean, and become acquainted with the many, many authors and their stories that the region has produced. Chief among these writers are the geniuses, Nobel Laureates, Trinidadian, Sir Vidia Naipaul, and St. Lucian Sir Derek Walcott. Other notable authors are Wilson Harris, George Lamming, Marlon James, Lawrence Scott, Robert Antoni, Monique Roffey, Amanda Smyth, Edwidge Danticat, Maryse Conde, Anthony C. Winkler, Elizabeth Nunez, Olive Senior and Edgar Mittelhozer to name just a few. And among these excellent writers, there may be yet one or two future Nobel Laureates. ‘Best West Indian Stories Edited by Dr. Ken Ramchand’ is an anthology of short fiction and presents wonderful stories by authors of an older generation. The review of ‘Best West Indian Stories’ in this book was written and published in the Trinidad Guardian about forty years ago. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawes & Jenkins Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781637842287

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From the Blue Mountains to the Corentyne Coast -and the Islands between

A Book of Caribbean Novels Reviews: Welcome to the World of Caribbean Authors and their Stories!

J. Wynner

ISBN 978-1-63784-227-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63784-228-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by J. Wynner

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Hawes & Jenkins Publishing

16427 N Scottsdale Road Suite 410

Scottsdale, AZ 85254

www.hawesjenkins.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

A High Tide in the Caribbean by Peter Morgan

From Trinidad to the Galapagos

Best West Indian Stories Edited by Dr. Ken Ramchand

Going to Southampton

Almost a whisper

The Mysterious Francis Sancher

The Tumultuous Year

Returning to the Main Road

‘Asylum for the Greats'

Who's listening?

Masquerade

Say Cheese

Eleven Tales

Dead Man Writing

The Sea, a Shark and Staying Alive

A Caribbean Classic

Pining for Harrow on the Hill

Braveheart

Mouth Open, Story Jump Out

Manuel - A Song of the Coumbite.

A Monk's Tale

How the Tuckers Came to Trinidad

A Writer Lost in an Island Love

Prayer of the Beads

The Golden Years

The Silver Workers

A Childhood Remembered

‘An Island to Give to the World'

Absentee Father

Protagonist and Villain

Fairy-Jumbie Jungle Home

From a female Perspective

Like father, like son

From Ivanhoe to Rhygin

Jamaican Rural, Coastal Scenes

Full Circle

Witchbroom

Haitian Tales

Homage to an Island

The Scapegoat

A Familiar Tune

‘Out of Order'

Ash, the Turning Point

Humour and Insight

Man's Inhumanity to Man

Night and Day Reversed

Gore to Core

Ramgolall's Story

Elizabeth d' Aviniere's 1761-1804

Touching Tales

King Cad

A Book of Unique Fables

A Well Oiled Story

Lee's Story

About the Author

AT LAST!

I have an ISBN number.

HOLY TRINITY!

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

THANK YOU!

For making my honour badge possible.

For Barbara, my partner, in appreciation for her unstinting support throughout the years.

For my mentor and good friend, writer, and communications lecturer, Dr. Marina Ama Omowale Maxwell, for her unwavering encouragement, Write On! Keep Going! Get Published!

Also, for Sally Erdle, the founder/owner, and editor of Caribbean Compass until her retirement in 2022 - now Editor Emeritus, to whom I would be forever grateful for publishing my work.

And for my brother, Michael Ian Calder who has voiced a mutual sentiment,

Our disagreements do not diminish our love.

Book Review of

A High Tide in the Caribbean by Peter Morgan

J. Wynner

A High Tide in the Caribbean was written by English-born Barbados citizen, Peter Morgan, who has attained a wealth of knowledge and experience of West Indian culture through his participation in both tourism and politics in Barbados, and extensive travel throughout the Caribbean archipelago.

The story depicts the political, social and cultural happenings during the period 1998 to 2004. It is set in the fictitious island of St. Cecilia and revolves around a seemingly never-ending Conference with the objective to make one more try to foster Caribbean unity and integration.

Recall the saga of the West Indies Federation? Well, Mr. Morgan has broached the issue again, even expanding the Conference participants to include the Dutch dependencies, the French Department, the American territories, the British colonies, and also Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, the office of the Prime Minister of Canada and the State Department in Washington are featured in the story too.

What takes place during the unusually long conference is, in local parlance, ‘jokey'. Mr. Morgan enlivens page after page of the book with characteristic West Indian flavour and British style, meshing a cast of northern participants and a colourful set of regional characters with memorable names such as Tin Tot, Fahda, Puddle, Gookie and Hardback who will put smiles on your face. You may even find yourself laughing out loudly. Those who appreciate British humour will especially enjoy reading the book.

The author's involvement in the political and social sphere of the Caribbean (in Barbados as a Senator, an elected member of the House of Assembly and Government Minister, as Barbados High Commissioner to Canada, and as founding Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Research Centre) clearly helped provide the material for this book. Its strength lies in the many humorous sideshows that succeed in reflecting some of the cultural and social aspects of the Caribbean such as a wake in the country, a political street protest, picketing, a night-club scene and a fishing excursion.

One chapter relates to a favourite Caribbean sport – a game so near and dear to both English and West Indian hearts - cricket. For West Indians, half the fun on attending a cricket match is taking in the animated ‘getting on' of the crowd which Mr. Morgan skillfully weaves into his social commentary on gender relations:

"In another part of the ground, where the crowd is noted for its enthusiasm and expertise in the finer points of the game, rather than for its elegance and sobriety, Puddle eased himself through a mass of pulsating humanity and tried to settle himself into a non-existent seat between Hardback and Gookie.

Man, Hardback, ease up a dite, man, an gi' muh a scotch, nuh?

Man Puddle, you is too big an' ugly to fit yuh arse in there man. Me an' Gookie wuz here early, man, where yuh bin all mornin'?

Man, that woman I got did gi' me fit this mornin' man – she does humbug me too bad, I tell yuh – I like to throw she out the house. Any woman goin' to mek a man late fuh the game en' woth a damn, replied Puddle angrily but all the while gaining territory on the sitting area.

Man Puddle, yuh is too foolish and easy 'pon she, man. I tol' yuh long since that creature wud gi' yuh trouble. She too don't-carish. Yuh shoulda buss she arse ever since, man. A few good licks is all a woman like that does unerstan'.

So, wha' yuh bettin' on de game now, Gookie? said Puddle, eager to take his mind off the offending female now that he had achieved his territorial objective. Yuh still suh assified to think them Orstralians gunna beat we? eh?… Man, hush yuh mout', Puddle, yuh don't see dey 'bout to start the game? Man, I proud enuff to be here today. Cricket! Lovely cricket!?

Nonetheless, in tandem with the sideshows, is a renewed call for Caribbean unity. Mr. Morgan's theme is telling us nothing new. However, he is saying something that needs reinforcing - that this search for Caribbean unity and integration will go on and on and on until we make it happen.

For, as the quote from V. Schoelcher ‘Les Colonies Francaises', Paris, 1852, at the beginning of the book reminds, …One cannot help but think that they may well come together some day to form a distinct social body in the modern world… They might well unite in confederation, joined by a common interest, and possess a merchant fleet, an industry, arts and a literature all their own. That will not come about in a year, nor in two, nor perhaps in three centuries, but come about it some day shall, for it is natural that it be so.

Book Review

Archipelago by Monique Roffey

Simon &Schuster UK Ltd., 2012

ISBN: 978-0-85720-310-6

From Trinidad to the Galapagos

By J. Wynner

"White mountains glimmer into view. A Trinity of cones - snow or sugar – but he knows they're neither. They are peaks of harvested solar salt, dazzling and miraculous, rising up like unicorn horns, or hills of a distant moon.

They are at odds with everything he knows in the Caribbean and they strike an unlikely picture on his eye. They could be the Swiss Alps deposited in a mixed-up dream. The mineral is found in great quantities here. In the south, Bonaire is more or less one large salt-infused wetland. When the seawater evaporates in the searing sun, piles of salt are left behind"…

Yes, as if with wide angle lens and in high definition, Trinidadian author, Monica Roffey's Archipelago gives a picture of both the land and sea vistas of the Caribbean when her protagonist Gavin Weald, skipper of Romany, his six year old daughter, Océan, and dog, Suzie set sail west in the Caribbean Sea from their home in Trinidad visiting some of the islands, the mainland of Colombia, and then transiting the Panama Canal on the way to the Galapagos.

On Bonaire's east coast, the sea isn't flat and gentle and full of beckoning sea forests. This coast is rough, so swimming can be dangerous, sailors cannot moor, divers will encounter predatory sharks… They track the coast and drive through well-watered desert, tall candle cactus, prickly pear cactus and wild donkeys, brought by the Spanish five hundred years ago, wild goats, too, and lizards, more lizards. These ones are grey and wattled, the males almost five feet long. They lounge in the green bushes by the side of the road like concrete statues, basking in the sun. They are like conquistadors with their spiked helmets and pewter body armour which catches and reflects the colours of the rainbow…

In Archipelago, Roffey, author of the acclaimed The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, captures the wonders in the sea, too. "There's a splash, to starboard now. Fifty feet away, the sea parts again. Then they see a creature rise upwards like a tower from the sea, gigantic, like a space ship. But it's sleek and has a fluted stomach, ridged like the hull of a dingy. It has an enormous mouth, yes, like the gullet of a pelican; and a tiny eye next to it, quite blue. And it has wings, this creature or maybe they are oars; they are fretted – no, they are giant flippers. And the chin of the beast has buttons, maybe, barnacles or crustaceans. It seems to be up on its tail, rowing itself backwards in the air, smiling and saying here I am. And the creature is completely white. White all over, like milk. White like peace."

Though the book reads like a travelogue, Roffey has skillfully blended in an escape story in which the archipelago can be breezily sailed through; it's a leisurely read, though by no means a leisurely sail for skipper Gavin Weald. Besides the elements, he has to deal with his own inner demons.

It was then his old life ended…a year ago, after the torrential rain one December night which had the water flowing off the hillside behind where Gavin lived causing the massive brown wave that swamped his home taking the life of his infant son. When he held his wife and felt her body stiffen and knew that something had already set in… He and Claire didn't manage to speak about their son's death; her grief was turned in on itself. It was like she'd lost her wiring, the electricity that makes a human spark, live, talk, smile, sing. Her soul had vanished. And, to be truthful, he had similar feelings in his heart.

With these feelings in his heart Gavin flees to sea. But Gavin's inner turmoil sailed with him. "He was scared of his wife, of catching what she had, that she'd spread it; that he was already a little contaminated.

Depression ran in her family. It did not run in his family. But these things can catch and he did not want to get what his wife had… He let her go back to her mother's house…"

Océan, though a child is acutely aware of her mother's condition and the brown wave which took her brother away from them, and is very much part of Roffey's narrative. And, like her father she is an escapee too. However, she possesses a child's unique awareness of the wonders of everything experienced on the trip.

But, there is always the internal questioning by Gavin. Near voyage's end the queries are still there: Is this what he planned on, quietly, wished for, silently, when they left Trinidad? To be out here, this much out of his depth? Is this the dream he'd conjured all his adult life, this journey, this escape? Why did he want to be out here, in the middle of the biggest sea on earth?

There is the inner inquiry about his boat, too, in which Gavin parallels the previous owner's situation to his: "What of the man who owned Romany before him? Was he so easily lulled? Did the boat pitch – did he fall over the rails, into the bewitching sea? Did he die in the arms of his beloved? Or, like him, did he have a good reason to flee, leave town?"

This is a story about sailing and heartbreak: "What Trinidadians call heartbreak. Tabanca fer so, a man or woman will declare when gripped by this particular emotion. People laugh or smile at the word because it rolls so well on the tongue; it could be the name of a cocktail, or a flower, something enjoyable, but no, there's nothing enjoyable about being in a state of tabanca…"

But, with its exquisite descriptions of both psychological and geographical views as the story unfolds, Archipelago sure is an enjoyable read.

BOOK REVIEW

Best West Indian Stories Edited by Dr. Ken Ramchand

By J. Wynner

Dr Ken Ramchand is most apologetic in the introduction to his anthology Best West Indian Stories. Some of the best I have omitted, ‘La Divana Pastora and ‘Triumph by CLR James. Thought hard about Shiva Naipaul and Seepersad Napiul; and could not obtain permission to include ‘B Wordsworth' and ‘The Night Watchman's Occurance Book.

Without these one really cannot claim to have captured the best. I agonized over Lamming and Austin Clarke. Yes, what about Lamming's humorous ‘A wedding in Spring', Clarke's vivid account of two participants in the Canadian Domestic Scheme in ‘I Hanging On, Praise God!', and for that matter Selvon's side-splitting ‘Brackley and the Bed'. VS Reid one of the Caribbean's finest writers is not included either.

And, then too, there is no Mittelholzer, no Carew, no‘Coming of Amalivaca', and only one story by Wilson Harris who along with Jamaica Shinebourne and Noel Williams represent the Guyanese writers – not much of, as Andrew Salkey says in his West Indian Stories, The British Guianese authors penchant for mysticism, legend and jungle lore – yes, not enough of the Guyanese authors whom amongst the Caribbean (English Language) writers to my mind most captures the essence of their land and its people – from coast, to city, to towns and villages, to hinterland.

So much for absent works and absent authors. Nevertheless, some of the