Simply brilliant!
5 steloj
I already had two strong contenders for my January Book of the Month (in 2021), but then I read How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House and was absolutely blown away. This Barbados-set novel is unflinching in its grim portrayal of intersecting lives in a Paradise that is beset more by horror than bliss. The story begins with the recounting of a folktale of two sisters - one good and obedient, the other determined to go her own way. Of course, the own-way sister is the one who must be maimed as her punishment for being so bold, but, as Cherie Jones magnificently then shows us, her Barbados women really had no chance, regardless of which path they chose.
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is a hard-hitting, shocking read. I was gripped from start to finish, but did occasionally find myself recoiling from violence on the page - …
I already had two strong contenders for my January Book of the Month (in 2021), but then I read How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House and was absolutely blown away. This Barbados-set novel is unflinching in its grim portrayal of intersecting lives in a Paradise that is beset more by horror than bliss. The story begins with the recounting of a folktale of two sisters - one good and obedient, the other determined to go her own way. Of course, the own-way sister is the one who must be maimed as her punishment for being so bold, but, as Cherie Jones magnificently then shows us, her Barbados women really had no chance, regardless of which path they chose.
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is a hard-hitting, shocking read. I was gripped from start to finish, but did occasionally find myself recoiling from violence on the page - scenes made all the more horrifying by their matter-of-fact acceptance on the part of the characters concerned. The dual faces of stunningly beautiful Baxter's Beach reminded me of reading A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid's powerful polemic about Antigua, a similarly former-British island 500 kilometres from Barbados. Rich white people pay to only see the beauty, even their beachfront houses only face out to sea rather than into town and they buy the most attractive local people by the night. Behind the facades however lies a poverty-stricken society with seemingly no hope of escape from destructive patterns that repeat through each generation. This is a grim read, but I couldn't look away and even finished the book feeling somewhat breathless. As though I hadn't just read Jones' words, but lived this story alongside Lala, Adan, Wilma, Mira and Tone. An incredible novel.