The author of Jumping Ship and Other Stories recounts the story of Uxann, a shy country girl in Trinidad, whose sheltered existence will be destroyed by the rites of passage into womanhood. A first novel. Tour.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This first novel from Trinidad's James skillfully depicts an adolescent girl coming of age on a Caribbean island.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A first novel from Trinidadian-born James (the story collection Jumping Ship, 1992) that turns the coming-of-age of a young Caribbean woman into a disturbing fable--one that movingly evokes the loss of innocence in a lush tropical demi-paradise. James again displays his lyrical gifts in a story that makes the island setting as palpable a presence as his protagonist, young Uxann. Uxann, innocent and dutiful, lives with her father, Seyeh, on a small farm outside the local village. Her mother went off with another man, and now Seyeh carefully protects Uxann from worldly influence. Uxann, a diligent and accomplished student at the local convent, delights in studying, taking care of the farm animals, and keeping house for her beloved father. But it is inevitable--her classmates are already falling in love, getting pregnant, and having to drop-out--that Uxann's innocence cannot endure. In a series of sometimes less-than-credible twists and turns of plot, Uxann painfully and then tragically is expelled from Eden into a horrifying world where old secrets are revealed and new disasters wreak havoc. Her father arranges for her school-friend Keah to help with the housework to earn money against a debt her family owes; Uxann's initial reservations are overcome by her pleasure in having company in the house. But sexually experienced Keah, the designated serpent in the story, soon seduces Uxann's father; Uxann finds out, and in despair gets drunk, which leads to her being unknowingly-- and unconvincingly--impregnated by her equally drunk father. A son is born, and Uxann, noting the resemblance to her father, is driven to madness and murder. ``The natural order,'' the routine of the farm, will be her only comfort. A stunning tragedy of carefully calibrated horror and pulsating sensuality that is more a tropical murder of the innocents that a conventional rites-of-passage novel. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Kelvin Christopher James has written 2 short story collections and 4 novels, all critically acclaimed, Mooch is his fifth novel. He has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in Literature.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kelvin Christopher James Knows the Secret,
By IsolaBlue (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Secrets (Hardcover)
Kelvin Christopher James is a man who knows how to write about life as a young West Indian girl, a lonely overweight twelve year old. And that is the secret to this book - good cross-gender writing. Things not-quite-believable happen in James' book, but practicality doesn't matter in a novel that carries with it an edge of magic. For us to believe in James' work, we have to fill in the blank spaces in the collage. SECRETS is more a collection of descriptions, feelings, and impressions than it is a story. There is a story, of course, but far removed from the model of most books. SECRETS is unusual for a West Indian novel as it is sparsely populated; Uxann, Keah, and the father are the only players. In choosing to have few characters, James succeeds in portraying isolation, despair, and everyone's sense of being "other." There is nothing traditional and nothing expected in SECRETS which is why it works. From the patchwork-quilt approach of the writing style to the handling of themes such as coming-of-age and sex, James has gone to another level and taken us there as with him.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
