I am still reading.
I am now back in the corporate world and work is putting a very unwelcome dent in my free time to read and especially, to write about it!
The number of books I have been getting through has also therefore sadly been reduced, but I am trying to get back into the habit.
The last book I finished was The Long Song by Andrea Levy - she is also the author of a Small Island.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for the Orange Prize, THE LONG SONG is breathtaking, hauntingly beautiful, heartbreaking and unputdownable You do not know me yet. My son Thomas, who is publishing this book, tells me, it is customary at this place in a novel to give the reader a little taste of the story that is held within these pages. As your storyteller, I am to convey that this tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom that followed.
As described, the book sets out the story of July - a house slave upon the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica in the early 19th century. July is conceived when her slave mother Kitty is raped by overseer Tam Dewar. After a traumatic birth, July is fortunate to live with her mother for some years, helping in the fields to bring water to the field slaves. That is until the arrival upon the plantation of Caroline Mortimer, plantation owner John Howarth’s widow sister, who takes one look at little July and steals her from her mother to be her personal companion within the grand plantation household. It is a theme that will continue throughout the book.. It tells her story, in her words and her voice, of growing up in the last years of slavery in Jamaica.
I usually tend to find books about slavery and the associated history fascinating - and this was no different. However, I really struggled with the narrator, July's voice. It is appropriate that it is written in her language and from her viewpoint, but I found the language and her tone to be very grating and it did not create a feeling of sympathy or understanding with me.
The book has been shortlisted for numerous prizes so once again I feel like I missed something. I realise that an extraordinary amount of research must have gone into the book and it is a fascinating, well written story - but I just didn't like the lead character which made it very hard to get engrossed in the book. I did want to know what happened to her throughout the story and I did finish the book, but I wouldn't be rushing to recommend it to my friends.
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