Unburnable: A Novel [Hardcover]

Marie-elena John (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

John takes readers into Caribbean culture and contemporary black America to explore family and oppression in this affecting but flawed debut novel. Lillian, a 30-something native of Dominica, now an activist in Washington, D.C., suffered a breakdown at 14 after discovering the identity of her birth mother, Iris: the beautiful, insane village prostitute whose own mother, the famous healer Matilda, was convicted of multiple murder and hung. Sent to live with her aunt in New York, Lillian grows up shielded from her history, avoiding troubling questions about herself and keeping friends distant. Her only real friend is Teddy Morgan, a self-absorbed historian she's pined after since their college days. Twenty years after leaving Dominica, Lillian is determined to return, in hopes of learning what happened to her mother, grandmother and herself—and she's determined to bring Teddy with her. John switches between Lillian's present day and the mid-century lives of Matilda and Iris, who are warm, vibrant characters and a welcome contrast to Lillian's gloom-and-doom. Aloof from the outset, it's never clear why, after 20 years without contact, Lillian wants to investigate her past, and her calculated manipulation of Teddy makes her hard to feel for. However, strong writing and interesting supporting characters should keep readers occupied through the end. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This compelling first novel traces the fortunes of three generations of women from the small Caribbean Island of Dominica. Matilda, descended from African slaves, was a famous healer and possible murderer. The story of her hanging was handed down in songs. Her daughter, Iris, was famous as the jilted lover of a rich man and the victim of a horrific rape. Her subsequent insanity and death also became legendary. Iris' daughter, Lillian, was raised by her devoutly Catholic stepmother. Until the age of 15 she remains unaware that the infamous women of song are her legacy. Now living in Washington, D.C., the fragile, adult Lillian returns to Dominica to try to unravel the history of her family. The richly told narrative alternates between time periods, building suspense and compassion for all of the characters. The possibly insane Lillian is the least well rounded of the women, which makes the final chapters a little disappointing. The diversity of the African diaspora is often overlooked in modern African American literature, and this page-turner fills in some gaps. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Amistad (April 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060837578
• ISBN-13: 978-0060837570
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #910,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #46 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Caribbean

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spellbinding Debut!!, April 10, 2006

By	Phyllis Rhodes (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Unburnable: A Novel (Hardcover)

Wow! I can hardly believe Unburnable is Marie-Elena John's debut because she wrote such a deep, suspenseful novel that had me guessing until the last page. I found it to be perfectly paced, very well written with colorful, smart characters that jumped off the page. I was both entertained and educated by this offering - a rare feat in today's literature.

The story centers on three generations of Dominican women, two of which are infamously captured in local folklore, legend, and indigenous songs. Matilda, a proud, majestic African woman rumored to dabble in Obeah was publicly tried and hanged for murder after she confessed in police custody. Iris, Matilda's daughter, was a beautiful prostitute known for her voracious sexual appetite, disreputable past and questionable mental health. Lillian, Iris's daughter, was raised by her stepmother after Iris's untimely death. Lillian eventually moves to the United States to live with an aunt in order to shield her from her foremother's legacy. We learn quickly that the proverbial fruit does not fall far from the tree. After years of self-suppression, Lillian's mental instability manifests to the point where she now has difficulty blocking the painful memories. Fueled by inner voices and haunting flashbacks, she decides to return back to Dominica to learn the truth surrounding her family. She engages Teddy, a renowned attorney, collegiate confidante (and soon to be lover), who is basking in the afterglow of a sensationalized legal case where he successfully disproves a self-confession against tumultuous odds. Lillian sensing her grandmother's innocence, asks Teddy to join her in Dominica to re-investigate Matilda's 1940's era confession to mass murder. What ensues is a loaded history of dark secrets, shocking scandal, and a cover-up that permeates all levels of class, religion and the biased politics of the day.

At the very core of the story, the author captures the essence of the African Diaspora. The complexities, struggles, and compromises surrounding the blending of races, cultures and faiths are evident in the trials and tribulations of all three women in both current and historical eras. There are even subtle observations and theories regarding African American and African Caribbean cultures which explain the mindsets of the key characters. Additionally, the author weaves a great deal of Dominican history throughout the novel, done with such care that the lessons are not overbearing, but essential to understanding the motivation and principles of key characters that eventually lead to the mystery's resolution. I loved the transition between eras - the flashbacks to Matilda and Lillian's periods were smooth and blended evenly with the modern day episodes between Lillian and Teddy. This is a great debut and I am looking forward to this author's next body of work.

Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub
Nubian Circle Book Club

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A five-star experience, June 15, 2006

By	JayBee (Miami, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unburnable: A Novel (Hardcover)

For a long time, I've been consistently disappointed with the stuff that's being put out there by Black writers. With only a few exceptions, the publishing houses seem to be pushing little apart from Street Lit and Baby Mama Drama kinds of books. So when I heard the buzz in the publishing world about Unburnable, I made a point of buying it. The best way I can think of describing this book is a Caribbean version of Alex Haley's Roots, except that it also has elements of a mystery, a love story (actually, three love stories), a detective whodunit, a historical novel, an exploration of religion, a cliff-hanger, and straight up smart, strong writing. The author doesn't shy away from sexuality (you only have to read the first page to realize that this book deals head-on with sexuality); however, the sex in the book is not gratuitous, it serves to elaborate the author's many themes - rigid class and color distinctions, for example, and how women's sexuality and child-bearing capacity is controlled to maintain class structure.

There are also a few scenes of surprising violence, too, written in such a way as to stun the reader, especially the female-on-female violence. That particular scene, which is referred to in reviews as the Coke-bottle rape, is just amazing in its ability to encompass the nature of the class structure of the day; and it also set off a chain of reactions that symbolized the beginning of the end for the light-skinned dominant class of that time in the Caribbean.

I would call this book a "Diaspora Novel" because while the majority of the action is set in the Caribbean (both in present time and in the mid-1900s), it also draws on the African-American experiences, the Caribbean-American immigrant experience, and, best of all, the underlying African heritage of former slaves in the Diaspora. To say any more would be to give too much away, because the answers to the "mysteries" of Unburnable - what is Lillian's past? Why is she tormented by it? Was her mother really a madwoman? Was her grandmother really a murderer? What really happened in her grandmother's remote village over fifty years earlier? -- are only all fully revealed at the end of the novel, and I found the end to be fitting and beautiful; again, to say more would be to say too much.

The one thing I wished for in this novel was a fuller development of the male character, the African-American public intellectual, Teddy Morgan. He underwent a transformation from a self-absorbed climber to a man who responded to the effect of selflessly loving another and giving in to that love, and I would have been interested in more about his background, especially his rise to fame around the Central Park Jogger case.

I read a review of Unburnable in Essence saying that this author will be a major new voice in fiction. I agree fully and look forward to her next book. In the meantime, I know for sure that I'll read Unburnable at least one more time, not only to savor being so fully immersed in the experience, but because it's the kind of book where there's so much under the surface that each re-read will bring fresh things to light.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new Caribbean Classic, October 4, 2006

By	Paula E. David (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Unburnable: A Novel (Hardcover)

This novel is destined for "Caribbean Classic" status.

While I am mindful that many writers hate being "compared" and although I concede that the literary styles, politics and and subject matters of the two novels are vastly different in many respects, there is a compelling case for comparing "Unburnable" with Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea".

One obvious similarity is that both novels are set in Dominica (there must really be something magical about about that little rock); another is that both novels were authored by Caribbean women. The most important similarity, however, is that both authors insist that the Caribbean woman's (and by extension the Caribbean peoples') right to dignity must be acknowledged. Both authors are bellicose in their refusal to accept the self hatred which is part and parcel of the legacy of colonialism.

Alienation is an important theme in both novels. Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea and Lillian in Unburnable are women ill at ease in their environments, uncomfortable in her own skins, who nevertheless, fight tooth and nail to assert their right "to be".

Both novelists challenge the still prevailing view of polite Caribbean society that "obeah is wicked and its practitioners are charlatans; praise Jesus that our colonial masters liberated us with christianity". Christophine in Wide Sargasso Sea and Matilda in Unburnable are both healers and protectors; superheroines a la Wonder Woman, Mighty Isis and Xena Warrior Princess. They right wrongs, punish evil and defend the downtrodden. They are the christian god in earthly female form, with the appealing bonus of being strikingly beautiful. (An interesting aside: obeah is still illegal in most independent Caribbean states. In this very year there was a prosecution in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines for "attempting to pervert the course of justice through the use of obeah". The magistrate agreed with the argument of counsel for the defendant that the charge was too absurd to be maintained and the case was dismissed on a no case submission).

The question which arises is, why are there such startling thematic similarities between a novel penned in the early 20th century by a white woman, born in colonial Dominica and one written at the dawn of the 21st Century by a black woman, a product of the Post-Independence Caribbean? Is the answer simply that the legacy of five hundred years of colonialism cannot be undone in under a century? How far does the truism of the universality of the human experience apply?

But I intended to discuss "Unburnable". Marie-Elena John is a natural story teller. Like all the other readers, I could not put the book down because the story was so gripping. What facinated me is that she manages to weave in discussions on gender relations, feminism, Caribbean nationalism, Pan-Africanism, the nature of faith, the nature of bigotry, Caribbean class structure and many other "heavy" themes without making the story suffer; without boring the reader to death with self conscious diatribe.

Although I am somewhat handicapped in the arena of making predictions (all the good obeah women having been driven underground by this year's prosecution and, therefore, unavailable to offer assistance) I will venture this; Unburnable will appear on the book lists of CXC, CAPE and UWI's degree programmes in English in a very short time.