The Swinging Bridge

Finished August 23
The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet

This book really took me into another culture that I was unfamiliar with. The main character here is Mona a film researcher who lives in Montreal, but grew up in Trinidad.
Her memories of her childhood are mixed, with moments of happiness and others of suffering and limitations. One of her worst memories is of her father in a drunken rage threatening to kill her brother when he was only nine years old. She also remembers cruel punishments from him for his perceptions of her unacceptable behaviour.
In the present-day, her brother Kello, who lives in Toronto, is dying and wants Mona to go back to Trinidad and purchase the family property that her father sold years before. As she talks to her brother, and visits the home of her youth, she must confront these memories, but also learn more about her family, her parents, her grandparents, and her great-grandparents.
The reader learns along with her, discovering the origins of the Indians who live in the Caribbean, and specifically in Trinidad, brought there as indentured workers following the end of the slavery of those from Africa. There is a hierarchy that has developed there, with the white people at the top and the black people at the bottom, with the brown people in the middle. In her family's history, whenever the women ventured to have relationships that ventured beyond their own people, they were punished and set back on the path that was preferred by the men in their lives. But the history survived, and Mona digs through it, finding the real story of her great-grandmother who came alone from India, losing a lover along the way, and finding a new, but restricted life in her new country.
She finds these stories are not singular, but common, and still happening. She watches her cousin Bess, who still lives in Trinidad deal with the sexism and racism that still influences the life she lives there.
This book was shortlisted for the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the Best First Book category and longlisted for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The author is a Canadian who grew up in Trinidad, which strongly influenced this book. There is a biography and interview at the back of my edition of the book.
I really enjoyed learning about Trinidad and its history and culture, and appreciated the glossary that was included as many of the terms were new to me. The characters speak in the local patois, which helps to bring the story to life in its setting.

Nothing Like Love

Finished June 3
Nothing Like Love by Sabrina Ramnanan

This first novel is a wonderful immersion into the life of a small community in Trinidad and Tobago called Chance. The year is 1974. The story revolves around two young people, their family and friends. Vimla Narine is a smart young woman. She gets the highest marks in her class, has been accepted to teach at the school in Chance, and is in love with Krishna. Krishna is the son of the village holy-man, Pundit Anand. When the two young people are caught alone at night, it doesn't matter that they were only talking, a scandal has begun. Pundit Anand uses his influence to make things worse, causing Vimla to lose her teaching offer, and sending Krishna to study religious texts at his aunt's in Tobago while his father arranges his marriage to another young woman. Both Vimla and Krishna are heartbroken, but Krishna finds a new world in Tobago, one that his father's tight control on his life hasn't brought to his experience. Vimla finds herself approached by the beautiful Chalisa Shankar, the young woman that Pundit Anand and Chalisa's grandmother have arranged to marry Krishna.
This is a story about parental, and grandparental, expectations, how adults try to push their dreams onto the lives of their children and grandchildren without asking the young people if these are also their dreams, or looking at the natural skills of the young men and women to see if they suit. It is also about young people being brave enough to stand for their own dreams.
I love how Ramnanan uses the unique way the islanders talk to bring their world to life. We see the festivals and traditions, the way that people mingle socially, the moral expectations.
This is a novel that flows nicely, with a plot that keeps the reader turning the pages to find what happens next. Definitely a winner.

Archipelago

Finished September 26
Archipelago by Monique Roffey

This novel begins a year after Gavin's home was hit by a destructive wave of water during a storm, damaging the home badly and dealing a debilitating blow to his family. As the rainy season begins again, Gavin's six-year-old daughter Océan begins having nightmares about the events that changed her life, and Gavin finds himself still stuck in the depression that has been with him since that day. He makes a spontaneous decision to take his old sailbook Romany and head west from his home in Trinidad with Océan and his dog Suzy. He has no real destination at first, just moving away from the source of his and Océan's sadness, but his old dreams of sailing to the Galapagos Islands begin to surface.
Gavin regains his old comfort with sailing gradually, and for one difficult stretch advertises for someone to help, bringing a young Swedish woman, Phoebe, into their lives, and breaking into their protective aloofness. Océan's comfort with the sea increases as the trip progresses, and the two find that the sea encourages them to ponder their sadness, which has followed them, and interests them in their lives once more.
The trip takes them from Trinidad first to the Venezuelan Margarita Island, on to Los Roques, and from there to the ABC islands of Bonaire, Curacao, and Aruba. Then a long open sea stretch over to Cartagena, on to the San Blas Archipelago, through the Panama Canal and on to the Galapagos Islands.
It also exposes them to fascinating creatures on land and sea, to a wide variety of people and ways of living, and to more sadness and loss and to joy. This is the story of a father and his daughter healing together, discovering together, growing closer, and finding a way to move on. Roffey's writing is easy and flowing, bringing the world around these travellers to life, along with their feelings.
The only criticism I found was towards the end, where I felt the plot manipulated to bring about the ending.

White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Finished June 15
White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
This is a wonderful book that follows the lives of a British man, George, and his wife, Sabine. They came to Trinidad in 1956, where he would work, as many did, in a shipping company as a clerk, on a three-year contract.
The book begins in 2006, when Sabine has resigned herself to living in Trinidad for the rest of her life. Her daughter, Pascale, has married locally, and her son Sebastian works in England. George does freelance writing for the local paper. When George discovers one of her long kept secrets, he is driven to take new risks in his life, in an effort to revive their relationship. This section occupies the major part of the book. We see events from both George and Sabine's viewpoint.
In the next section, the book moves back to 1956 when the couple arrived in Trinidad. From her on, we see things from Sabine's view only. She has brought with her a green bicycle and she bicycles all over Port of Spain and the surrounding area on it. She is a legend, but she doesn't realize it right away. Also in 1956, the young Eric Williams is beginning to speak out for home rule. Sabine's wanderings take her to one of his speeches and she is fascinated. We see how she fought to be her own person and fought against the seduction of the island that had already captured George.
The book follows through other major events in 1963, culminating in the riots of 1970 when the family almost left. Throughout, Sabine rages against the island and studies it, and finds that she has become part of it, whether she likes it or not. This is a story of modern-day colonialism and the struggle of a developing country to find its own voice. Sabine belongs here and yet she will never belong. This is both her home and her prison. And, as the white woman on the green bicycle, she makes one final stand for what she believes is right.
A fascinating book that tells a unique story.

Canadian Novel

Finished April 4
The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj
This fascinating novel follows a young Trinidadian, Samuel, in his early life in Canada. When Samuel's mother dies, it is arranged that he joins his father in Canada.Samuel is sixteen and hasn't seen or heard from his father for years. He hopes for a warm welcome, but does not get it. His father barely talks to him and disappears without warning, sometimes for days. Samuel decides he must discover this country on his own. He is a good watcher and we see the new environment and the people he meets through his eyes. He spends a lot of time alone, but closely observes what he sees.
I found it interesting to see things through his eyes and interpretations, to revisist that sense of newness with things unfamiliar. Samuel is a practical boy and carefully considers his actions beforehand. There is humour and intelligence here and a genuine interest in the world around him. A very enjoyable read.