A retired scientist recalls growing up in rural Jamaica in this memoir.

While delivering a sermon as First Elder at his Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) church in Florida in 2008, Daley was inspired by the agricultural imagery of the remote village of Slipe, Jamaica, where he grew up. His story, which drew immense interest from both church members and his own children (who were raised in the United States), serves as the inspiration for this book. Located in Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth Parish, the isolated Slipe is surrounded by the Great Morass, a massive mangrove swamp fed by Jamaica’s longest river. The author nostalgically recounts scouring bushes as a child for hot peppers to sell to vendors, who used them in a local recipe for spicy shrimp. In part a “journey of discovery,” the memoir pays close attention to the role of the SDA Church in Daley’s faith formation, in addition to the educational journey that eventually landed him a job in the United States as a pharmaceutical scientist. While the autobiographical vignettes provide an inspirational undercurrent to the narrative (particularly the author’s account of overcoming a debilitating childhood stutter), what stands out is Daley’s effective contextualization of his personal story within the larger history of Slipe. Described by the author as a “tribute to family, community, and the enduring spirit of a people,” the work blends family stories with records from archival newspaper accounts to construct an engaging history of the isolated rural village. Daley focuses not only on local details, such as the community’s love of dominoes, but also on the legacy of slavery, noting the presence of the nearby sugar plantation, whose wealth was “built on the suffering of the people.” As one who has traveled extensively in adulthood, the author concludes the work with a chapter-long travelogue detailing his experiences around the globe. The celebration of Slipe includes entire passages and dialogues written in Jamaican patois to “preserve authenticity”; this material is accompanied by English translations.

A poignant tribute to a remote Jamaican village that effectively combines memoir and microhistory.