Customer Reviews

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Even though I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, I never experienced the things that Staceyann Chin encountered and overcame. As I read Ms. Chin's memoir entitled, The Other Side of Paradise, I learned about places I had no clue existed in Jamaica. I also realized that Ms. Chin was a fighter from the day she was born. She fought for survival and freedom to be who she is without having to be afraid someone would punish her in whatever way they felt like. I became very emotional as I read about the way she was passed from one house to the other. I cried for everything that should not have happened to any human being; such as, abandonment, molestation, and dealing with her sexuality.

I recommend The Other Side of Paradise to anyone who likes memoirs; those who believe they cannot make it through the tough times; and most of all to anyone looking for things to be placed on a silver platter for them. Staceyann Chin is an example of what a person can achieve when they want to experience change in a positive way.

Jennifer Coissiere
APOOO BookClub

Jamaica is a beautiful island. It is a paradise. Like every other paradise it has its other side. StancyAnn Chin takes us to the other side of that paradise. No, she doesn't write about it. She takes us there. She is an exceptional writer. She describes painful moments in moving ways so that you may not feel them so painfully yet you can move about within those moments as if you were there. Genius.

This is one of those rare memoirs you keep going back because there are events you can't fathom. And there are events that remind you the humanity of that life. That little girl on the cover who is jumping in the sun, her world is both liberated and haunted. And it is all in the irony. In the sunny homeland she encounters abuse; in the depressing winters of New York she finds strength to stand up.

What I best love about this book is the way it relates to all of us. It is not about a lesbian or a Jamaican or a woman even. It has a universal feel. Themes that we can all relate to. Nobody wants to be unloved or abused or sink into depression. If you can come back from all those things, then you can enjoy this side of paradise. The paradise within.

I throughly enjoyed this book...as a gay Jamaican i could identify with a lot of the pain and angst staceyann wrote in her book...i too live with the threats and intimidations!that's why i no longer live in "paradise"...as a jamaican who lived with both parents...never having to worry where my next meal will come from or where i will sleep tonight...it make me realize just how much i take for granted and how much i should appreciate coming from a loving, caring family...the book should be an inspiration for all those young people whether gay or straight...never give up...never give up on your dreams...

I picked this book because my husband and I lived in Kingston, Jamaica for a few years. I thought I had a good understanding of the Jamaican culture, but I really appreciated this insight to the poor of Jamaica and the kind of lives they lead everyday. I learned a lot.

This is a book about StacyAnn Marshree Chin. Her mother must have loved her to have named her Ma Cherie, wouldn't you think? Don't think too fast, or assume anything. This little girl dealt with circumstances so pathetic, with a bright light of potential that few seemed to recognize or care enough to nurture. If you are looking for a hero, look for it in the tiny little girl that was born so small they didn't think she'd live.

I will say that if I hadn't actually lived in Jamaica I may have been skeptical that such things could happen in a Caribbean tourist hub such as Jamaica. But I volunteered at an orphanage there, and I saw things that would rival the Romanian orphans rocking themselves uncontrollably. In Jamaica, life is often not fair and there are no guarantees, in this case light skinned and keenly intelligent being or not.

Stacyann Chin is one of those souls born with a quick mind and lips that sometimes betray her best interests. If you don't want to google the author by the end of the book I would be shocked. I did!

This book would be interesting and poignant without having ever been to Jamaica, though.

I heard Ms. Chin read from her new memoir in Union Square last week. At times lucid and poignant, fiery and haunting, it was one of the most powerful literary experiences I've ever had. Read a review I wrote below (visit Alligator Legs on Blogger for more).

****
Staceyann Chin read from her new memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, @ Barnes & Noble Union Square. I got there an hour and a half early to flip through it, skimming over the front cover endorsements by Dorothy Allison, of Bastard Out of Carolina fame, and Walter Mosley, who sat a few rows up from me in the audience.

The memoir chronicles Chin's life as the illegitimate daughter of a Jamaican mother, who abandoned her shortly after birth, and Chinese father who never claimed her -- as she was shuttled from family member to family member, subjected to abuse and violence, before coming out as a lesbian, and leaving Jamaica for good. Her life is the stuff good memoirs are made of: shame, denial, abuse, neglect, and a heavy dose of alienation.

But what Chin does with it -- better than most, and likely owing to her performance art background -- is write with a naked honesty that is affecting and liberating, not giving a damn what anybody else thinks. She spoke about her fearlessness, saying, "When you don't have parents, you don't have those expectations." She felt free to be who she was -- "unruly," in her own words -- and loved enough by the people who were in her life to make her own choices.

It's the kind of liberation that is essential to creating authentic art, whether it be novels, plays, or films. A willingness to expose the truth of what it means to be black, female, Jamaican, and gay, no matter what the world may think.

As for the book itself, I found Chin's lyrical descriptions captivating, though her dialogue was a little stilted. It came off much better performed -- in her singsong, syncopated voice -- than read silently. Overall, The Other Side of Paradise is more than worth a read, if only as a guidebook for living out loud.

Chin issued a challenge to her audience, stating, "If you want them to keep supporting us [read: black, women, minority, or gay], buy the book."

To say The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir is an inspirational story is putting it mildly. Ms. Stacyann Chin was born into a life of poverty in Jamaica to a mother who did not want to take any responsibly for her and to a father who denied her very existence. Her and her older half-brother were raised partly by an elderly but loving grandmother. Her mother made a brief but disappointing appearance back into their lives but left them again. Before her mother left, she separated the two siblings and sent Ms. Chin to live with another relative which became a nightmarish experience. Through all of this she was still able to excel in school. Much of her tuition was paid for by the man who claimed not to be her father.
While in college she faces confusion about her sexuality. She takes a faithful trip to New York City to visit a relative and she figures out who she really is. She comes to terms with her lesbianism and goes back to Jamaica. She is tired of living her whole life trying to please people and be something she's not so she is "out" to all of her supposed friends and classmates. Everyone shuns her and she is almost sexually assaulted by a group of her classmates but was saved by a closeted student at her school. By the end of the book she decides the only way to live openly and be who she was is to live in New York City.

The title of this book is fitting because while many people think Jamaica is all about reggae, fun, sun and sand, there are some serious issues that plague the Jamaican people, particularly the poor. Ms. Chin does a great job of illustrating how ignorance plagues this society. There is ignorance in terms of race, gender roles and sexuality. Many people in this book hide behind the guise of religion to espouse their hatred and narrow-minded views of certain people.
She talks of how she overcame being literally beaten down and expected to turn out to nothing to having the determination within her and having the good fortunate of others, mostly strangers, and making something of herself. It was her sheer will and internal strength that helped her out of all of her hardship. All her life she had to fight to be her own woman despite what people said or did to her and in the end she accomplished just that.
To quote the title of one of Alice Walker's books, "You can't keep a good woman down" and Staceyann Chin demonstrates this well.
This was a fantastic read.

Wow. This is a very powerful book in terms of understanding different dynamics of the society and its impact on people who are marginalized in one way or another. Chin's struggles through life due to class and race issues as well as sexual orientation is told in an amazingly straight forward way and her narrative is a wake-up call for people with narrow outlooks towards life.
Chin is obviously a warrior from the very beginning of her life. Her surprising survival at birth is the least of her struggles. Her story tells us how some of the values (good or bad) we take to be objective are relative from one society to another, yet oppression of women and gay people sustains across cultures. I don't want to give away too much of her story, but you are interested in finding out more about the struggles the gay community faces, I highly recommend this book.

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin has everything going for it--dramatic circumstances, poetic voice, emotional depth, and even some moments of humor between the more brutal ones.

Sharing her story about growing up in Jamaica, abandoned by both mother and father, Staceyann and her brother, Delano, are shuffled from home to home. In spite of the constant shifts, Chin manages to fight for her education, a foundation that will eventually lead to her leaving Jamaica and moving to the United States. Between the poverty of her grandmother's home and her eventual move to New York City, Staceyann is faced with racism, sexism, and the constant danger of being used and abused for who and what she is.

What Chin manages to do brilliantly is to immerse the reader in her childhood, using dialect to flavor her narrative without its becoming distracting. Her experience as a poet and performer infuse her story with beauty and truth. The details of her narrative are so tightly woven that the memoir reads like a novel. And unlike so many memoirs I've read, there is no glossing over to get to the happy ending. Chin is brave enough to end her memoir with a sense of hope but no real closure. While other writers hastily clutter the final chapters with events to offer the reader the type of closure life rarely affords, Chin manages to end her memoir at a point that is both satisfying and natural if not conclusive.

The reader is definitely left wanting and hoping for more, with the inevitable questions drawn from the author's brief cover bio hanging in the air. When Chin arrives in New York, how does she go from immigrant to poetic force (with multiple appearances on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry) to one-woman performer in her own off-Broadway show? And at what point does she go from her own realizations to advocacy, appearing on Oprah, and being encouraged to share her story by writing what I hope will be her first memoir?

With so many memoirs being labeled "inspiring" I am loathe to add one more to the burgeoning list and yet Chin's story is exactly this--inspired and inspiring. I look forward to seeing where this remarkable woman will take herself and her voice next. I only hope that on her book tour our paths cross. I'd like nothing more than to thank her in person for her brilliance.

This woman is ONE BAD SISTA! Honestly, I did not know what force this woman had within her until I saw her at the book reading recently of her memoir at a local bookstore in NYC. Unlike my sister friend that I was with at this event, I was oblivious to what I was about to witness from this petite woman with the big hair. She looked calm approaching the stage but when she belted out the first few words from her novel I was in awe at her presence and, after reading her life story (thus far), her courage! My goodness...she seems almost heroic to me. I think she is because her childhood was put through the grinder time and time again. I didn't know how anyone could be able to survive such abuse, abandonment and uncertainty about one's future that way that Staceyann has done. From the moment of her birth in Jamaica, she fought to live, she fought to grow and she fought to survive while maintaining her knack for being so outspoken as a feminist and leader for gay rights! That woman in this book was Staceyann and her experiences led her to that very spot on that bookstore stage. I don't pity her--I have immeasurable respect for someone who sustains their individuality and does not cower to the boundaries that others want to place on your life--how you should live it, what you should say, etc. Although you might not know who Staceyann Chin is, after reading this book you will know a little more and want to learn more and more about her!

StacyAnn Chinn has a way with words, she actually makes the reader, 'see', what she is saying. Her voice was so authentic in describing her childhood and the people she loved. I found the way her mother hid her pregnancy most interesting. Also interestin was the way in which Ms.Chinn referred to her father, as the man 'I was told was my father.' At turns Ms. Chinn sounds almost blase' about her abusive situation at other times tongue-in-cheek.

Ms. Chinn takes the reader on an honest view of what it is like to deal with one's sexuality and to navigate the waters in a search for self. I enjoyed this at time poignant and other times funny memoir. Ms. Chinn is
a true survivor.

Angelia Vernon Menchan