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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Here it is, as promised, not tidy but true: the notes of a pirate's daughter."--Navy Island, December, 1976., October 3, 2007
May Flynn, the daughter of actor Errol Flynn and a beautiful Jamaican girl, has always wondered about her roots. Brought up by her mother Ida, grandfather Eli, and, for four years, a foster family, May is clever and tough from a young age. Always an outsider, she could pass for white, though she is not part of the white world of her father and maternal grandfather. Not part of the black world, either, though she considers herself "colored," she is often mocked by her dark Jamaican peers. Frequently alone, she keeps journals, filling them with stories of pirates, inspired by the films starring Errol Flynn which she sees at the local cinema.
As May discovers more about her mother Ida's life before, during, and after her birth, she creates the story of her own life, revealing it through flashbacks. When Errol Flynn's yacht was blown ashore at Port Antonio during a 1946 hurricane, her grandfather Eli drove to his aid, soon becoming Flynn's social secretary, guide, confidant, and real estate broker. Flynn finds the relaxed atmosphere of Jamaica a welcome contrast to Hollywood, where he faces charges related to his affairs with underage girls. He soon builds a palatial estate on Navy Island, off the coast, where he entertains Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Truman Capote, and a host of other Hollywood stars. It is here that Ida, May's mother, first meets Flynn when she is thirteen.
The second part of the novel follows Ida after she gives birth to May. Trying to support her family, she leaves Jamaica (and May) to find work in New York. Her return to the island several years later, and the changes she introduces into May's life, parallel some of the changes occurring on the island itself. Cuban refugees swarm to Jamaica to escape Castro's takeover. An economic downturn and, eventually, Jamaica's own independence from the British lead to competing political movements, violence, and atrocity over the next twenty years.
Filled with colorful characters, the patina of Hollywood, and the violence of political change, the novel is a fast-paced melodrama and family saga. The author's style is clean and simple as she traces lives across generations, providing enough description to enable the reader to create vibrant pictures of the action without bogging down the narrative in detail. Illness, death, financial disaster, smuggling, secret lives, ghost stories, rumors of hidden treasure, a mysterious grave, drug addiction, thwarted love, May-December romances, and shootings are among the many elements which keep the action moving--and keep the reader in a constant state of anticipation. Author Margaret Cezair-Thompson tells the story for its own sake, not to illustrate complex themes. The novel is entertaining, filled with non-stop excitement, and sure to appeal to a wide audience. n Mary Whipple
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I wasn't sure..., December 30, 2007
I had a bit of trouble getting into this book at first. I am not sure why other than the fact that I disliked Errol Flynn as portrayed in this book so much that I didn't care to finish. However, as I kept plugging along I found that I began to care deeply about Ida first and then her daughter May, and finally, about many of the family and friends that surround her. I also found that I became more and more interested in the portrayal of a by-gone era and the happenings on the island of Jamaica.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the portrayal of Errol Flynn, the history of Jamaica, or any of the other stars mentioned. However, I can vouch for the fact that this was an enjoyable story that really made the island of Jamaica come alive in my mind. I am glad that I persevered with this one.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"You shake him hand, you no shake him heart.", October 11, 2007
The tale begins with the larger-than-life presence of Errol Flynn, the great swashbuckling hero of the pirate movies, the stage set for an exotic adventure, a movie star who purchases his own private island near Port Antonio, Jamaica, building an estate and a reputation as a playboy extraordinaire, advised by a Port Antonio businessman and friend Eli Joseph. The two men share a love of conversation and grand ideas, Eli failing to notice his thirteen-year-old daughter's adoration of Flynn. Accompanying her father to Navy Island, Ida is enthralled by a luxurious lifestyle beyond her experience. By the time she is fifteen, Ida is pregnant with Flynn's child.
Given this dramatic turn of events, one might expect the movie star to do the right thing by his friend's daughter, but it is not in Flynn's nature to consider the feelings of others, still pursued by litigation for other underage conquests: "He felt as though he had some sort of moral immunity." Flynn sailing away, Ida is overwhelmed, her father in increasingly poor health. Faced with great responsibilities and few choices, Ida provides as best she can for May and Eli, but circumstances defeat her; when an opportunity to make a decent living in New York arises, Ida leaves three-year-old May and her ageing father in the hands of friends, hoping to bring them both to New York.
As many immigrants discover, America is not easily conquered; it is only through a stroke of luck that Ida encounters an acquaintance from Flynn's Navy Island days, Baron Karl von Ausberg. Karl is enchanted by the beautiful young woman and offers marriage. Eventually, Ida returns to Port Antonio as the wife of a baron, but at considerable cost to the relationship with her daughter. While Ida has attended to her husband's needs, May has suffered, taunted and chased by local children, the brunt of their jokes, the child and her grandfather long neglected in Ida's absence. How then to rectify her impulsive decisions, the illegitimate child, the long years of separation, marriage to the baron? Ida's task is daunting, perhaps impossible; the following years offer predictable challenges in a broken relationship, the sensitive May solitary and often taciturn, but diligent in writing an imaginative journal of pirates and their ribald enterprises.
Against this extraordinary background, a portrait emerges, the image shadowed by the movie star who has left two women in his dramatic wake, a daughter's imagination nurtured by the images projected on a theater screen. Everything about this story is larger-than-life, the mortal Flynn dying prematurely, his legacy a lover who still fantasizes about their romantic hours and a daughter who needs much but receives little, other than a chance afternoon with her father. From post-World War II to Jamaica's eventual independence from Britain and chaotic struggle toward self-rule, May struggles with an identity eclipsed by her mother's beauty. The Pirate's Daughter is rich with island history, the growing pains of a country, a cobbled-together family and a tormented young woman addicted to bad choices, but with an abiding love of place. Nowhere else could such a tale be told, Jamaica the lodestone for a family who dares to touch the sun and suffer the consequences, only to prove themselves capable of unconditional love for each other and their country. Luan Gaines/2007.
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