ANGEL

by Merle Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 25, 1988

A Grenada-born writer charts the coming-of-age of a young woman and the parallel fortunes of her Caribbean island nation; a first novel engagingly rich with Creole English, proverbs, and common speech. Angel McAllister grows up in colonial Grenada against a backdrop of strike, civil unrest, and the rise to power of Leader, the self-serving nationalist who helps guide the island to autonomous rule. Her father is away working in the US during her young years; her mother, the strong-willed, sometimes wrong-headed Doodsie, is the emotional center of the first third of the book, though her individual story is subordinated to the life-story of the community: the Grenadian experience and world-view emerge through brief sketches, conversations, and proverbs. When the McAllisters become more secure economically, community life is left behind and the novel sharpens its focus on Angel: she wins a coveted high-school scholarship; enters a convent school where she must cope with light-skinned upper-class gifts and the well-meaning but racist white nun who tells her to get her hair straightened so she'll look decent; and finally goes off to college in Jamaica, where her political awakening begins. The novel becomes more schematic and less artistically satisfying as it follows Angel and her family through the revolutionary era in Grenada: Leader is toppled, people are euphoric with the new government, dismayed by later political ambiguities, and faced with the shock of the American invasion. Still, the story here illuminates the history of modern Grenada within a human context in the best tradition of sociological fiction.

Pub Date: Sept. 25, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Seal Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION