Impressive familial saga set against the throes of Jamaican history.
Watson uses one family to chart the history of Jamaica to the present and beyond.
The history of Jamaica plays out in the background of this generational account of the Johnson family. The novel follows the Johnson clan from slavery to political prominence through the ups and downs of the island’s shifting society. Their saga mirrors the tensions—between the subsistence and ambition, rebellion and assimilation—that characterized the development of Jamaica as a self-articulating society. From the upheaval and fragility of the 19th century to the corporate structures and class aspirations of the 20th to the political machinations of the early 21st (including a glimpse into the future 2030s), the Johnsons attempt to succeed in a system that, while dynamic, continues to bear striking similarities to the original plantation model. There are still haves and have-nots, gatekeepers and collaborators, utopian dreams and brutal realities. As said by narrator and Johnson descendant Brianna Bedward, who’s introduced in the novel’s framing device: “To the extent that the fortunes of the Johnson family ran parallel to those of the island of Jamaica, this is also a story about Jamaica, and inasmuch as Jamaica is a part of the world, it is a story about the world.” Watson admirably weaves the Johnsons’ personal narratives into the larger happenings of Jamaican life, and the cameos by historical figures and institutions make the novel seem an authentic part of the island’s biography. The chapters sometimes drag as less-important decades are accounted for and various offspring emerge and are dispatched, but the overall arc of the family is satisfying in the way a single protagonist’s might be. The future-set sections are perhaps overly optimistic (though fun), and didacticism is always apparent: e.g., “The culture of the slave society promoted promiscuity” since slave owners and masters “hoped that in this way the women might have more children and every child born in slavery became the asset of his mother’s owner.” Yet the story is engrossing enough that its flaws are largely forgivable.
Impressive familial saga set against the throes of Jamaican history.Pub Date: July 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-7849-2
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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