Memoirs of a Brown-Skin Gyal: A Collection of Short Stories [Paperback]

Sandra Crough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2002

This story is of a brown-skin girl born in Honduras into a difficult family situation and raised by her grandmother in British Honduras, now Belize. The author tells of her youth, filled with travel in Central America, and of a voyage to the United States at age nine on a banana boat. Throughout the memoir, the author returns to the philosophical differences between the people of Central America and those of the United States. The eventful history of the author’s extended family is interwoven into these events. In her late teens, she escapes marriage to an Anglican priest by leaving for the United Kingdom to study nursing. This book relates several stories at once. It is a travelogue that touches on the history of different countries. It is a social commentary. And it is a family history. The story concludes with her arrival in the United States.

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: PublishAmerica (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159286032X
• ISBN-13: 978-1592860326
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,825,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Coming-of-Age Story From Belize, July 13, 2003

By 

Dera R Williams (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memoirs of a Brown-Skin Gyal: A Collection of Short Stories (Paperback)

When I saw the cover of this book, I was immediately captured by the subject matter. The author's picture reminded of someone I knew who also grew up in Belize.
Sandra Crough felt the sting of rejection and pity because she had no mother. Her married mother conceived her with a man that was not her husband and then left her with his mother to raise the child. "Why she no want me?" is her constant question to her grandmother. She is a brown-skinned gyal, a combination of the blending of the Spanish, Indian and African blood of Cental America. British Honduras, renamed Belize, is the only English speaking country in Central America. Sandra was born in Catholic Spanish Honduras where her father works for an American firm. She is taken to Belize where her Anglican grandmother sends her to Catholic school. She sees her mother, who now has other children, periodically, and spends some holidays with her father. She never feels any familial bond with either of them; they are both cold to her.

Sandra completes school and is fortunate to escape a legacy of marrying young and gets the opportunity to go to London to study nursing where she meets students from other countries and fall in love with an English young man. She then comes to the conclusion that America is where she wants to go to pursue her dreams and here is where this novella abruptly ends. Crough paints the landscape of Central America with descriptive imagery and the innocent voice of a child growing into herself. I look forward to the sequel of this story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Details, January 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Memoirs of a Brown-Skin Gyal: A Collection of Short Stories (Paperback)

This writer takes the reader into the heart of the events unfolding around her. Her descriptions of Hurricane Hattie are stunning. You are there with her. She interjects humor and wit into events unfolding around her and uses commonsense.

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories. Although she gives no specific physical description of her grandmother, you see her being feisty and defiant, and her granddaughter exhibits many of her traits.

Great stories that show no resentment towards her mother or father.

Let's hope she writes a sequel. What happened after she arrived in the USA.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smell the sea breezes!!, May 2, 2003

By 

Dante Monique Pirouz (Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memoirs of a Brown-Skin Gyal: A Collection of Short Stories (Paperback)

I love this book...you can almost smell the sea and feel the sand and seashells under your feet as you read it. This is a bittersweet story of abandonment, family, culture and love. Sandra's characters will remind you of the many faces and voices in your own family. Even though the emotions underlying each story were often heartbreaking and real, the voices of Grandma and the Auntys burst through until you are laughing yourself off your seat! This is a wonderful collection of stories that weave together to create the life history of a little girl who searched for the answers to the questions we all struggle with in life!