March 28, 2011
A newly independent Trinidad offers a rich backdrop for Roffey's evocative exploration of life in a tropical paradise rife with conflict. Sabine and George Harwood come to Trinidad from England with vastly different expectations: for Sabine, it is a blessedly limited three-year stint undertaken purely to advance her husband's career; for George it is an open-ended opportunity to break out of his dreary British life. The author depicts divergent worlds in a country with a long colonial history: the considerable wealth, luxuriant estates, and country clubs for the wealthy foreign-born, and the dilapidated shacks with no running water for the servant class. The island itselfâseductive, mysterious, unpredictableâprovides a challenging environment that exacerbates the tension between George and Sabine, and acts as incubator for the political unrest that brews when the young nation's new leader, Eric Williams, cannot come through on his many promises. With its unique structureâbeginning with George's perspective in 2006, then switching to Sabine's unsent letters from their early days on the islandâRoffey reveals how each experienced Trinidad so differently and offers a resonant account of how both Harwoods succumb to a place that is part paradise and part hell.
Starred review from May 15, 2011
An act of savage brutality opens this novel, which tells the story of one family living in Trinidad between 1956 and 2006. Among the last colonials from Britain to arrive, George and Sabine Harwood have been living in Trinidad for 50 years. George immediately fell in love with the island, while his wife constantly suffered from the heat, humidity, and political/racial situation there. The brutal living conditions of the great majority of the population are poignantly described; at one point, the son of Sabine Harwood's maid is brutally beaten by the police for complaining about their theft of his cell phone, an act that powerfully symbolizes the violence done to the native population over many decades. Told in a well-balanced manner, the rise to prime minister and eventual downfall of Eric Williams affects Sabine; she has a love/hate relationship with this Oxford-educated black man and writes him letters that are never mailed. VERDICT Roffey (Sun Dog) succeeds wonderfully in writing an informative and deeply moving novel about her homeland. (The "white woman on the green bicycle" is in fact her mother.) She writes realistically enough to make readers feel that they have visited the island. Deservedly a finalist for the Orange Prize; Roffey is a fantastic talent who, one hopes, will keep writing for years to come.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, National Coll. Lib., Youngstown, OH
Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 15, 2011
Massa day done. Who says? Few novels capture the postcolonial culture with such searing honesty as this Caribbean story told through the alternating viewpoints of a white British couple over the last 50 years. Sabine hates it in Trinidad. She wants to go back home to civilization. Her journalist husband, George, does not; he couldnt make it in Britain. She is smitten by charismatic freedom fighter Eric Williams, elected Trinidads first president in 1956, and she writes him a stream of letters, never posted. But life for the underclass doesnt improve. Even in 2006, why does the womans black servant, Jennifer, still have no electricity or running water? Why do the police beat up Jennifers son for reporting a stolen cell phone? The pitch-perfect voices capture the colonials racism and sense of entitlement (Slavery was mild in Trinidad . . . black man cant govern himself). Staring through the bars of her fancy home, the white woman does not belong, and she does not see that much remains the same.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)