And Who Might You Be?
Caribbean Life, FEB. 26-MAR. 4, 2021 39
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Who are you?
That’s a question some people
never ask themselves: seemingly
intuitively, they know the
answer at birth and they don’t
think about it again. Then
there are those who struggle
with knowing until their last
breath. Still others have stories
to tell about their search to
learn who they are. Read on…
One big secret-not-secret lies
at the heart of “Raceless” by
Georgina Lawton.
Born after a long labor in a
London hospital in 1989, Lawton
was the child of a (white)
British father and a (white)
Irish mother, and with her
black hair and deep brown eyes,
she “was not the baby they had
been expecting.” To save face,
her conception, the result of a
one-night stand, wasn’t talked
about, and her curly hair and
brown skin was blamed on a
genetic quirk on her mother’s
side, end of story. Lawton was
raised with love, never questioning
anything until four
years ago, when she took a DNA
test that indicated Nicaraguan
ancestry.
Her father had died by then,
and her mother refused to discuss
it.
The frustration and the
not-knowing sent Lawton on
a round-the-world excursion,
from Great Britain to Nicaragua
to the U.S., South Africa,
and elsewhere, in a search for
racial identity. This book is the
result: a thoughtfully-written,
beautifully-told look at Blackness,
culture, and love. It’s a
story that sometimes reads
faintly like a travelogue, but
one in which the search is not
for interesting sites, so much
as it is for insight, making this
a quietly persistent, personal,
and wonderful story to enjoy.
Like Lawton, Rebecca Carroll
grew up in circumstances
that were unique: as a little
girl, she was literally the only
Black person living in her small
New England town. In “Surviving
the White Gaze,” she
writes about a picture-perfect
childhood, the beliefs she was
raised with, a feeling that there
was something amiss, and her
ultimate reckoning.
The story of how she was
born and entered her family’s
lives was something Carroll
knew from a very early age.
Unlike Lawton’s family, Carroll’s
parents never hid anything
from her; she was told
the names of her birth parents
and she knew some of the
woman’s close relatives so it’s
a bit of a surprise that meeting
her (white) birth mother
was rather anticlimactic. Still,
that meeting and the subsequent
relationship they forged
left Carroll walking a long, fine
line between two mothers, and
looking for the identity she
craved all along.
“Surviving the White Gaze”
is good: it’s full of nostalgia for
anyone over 50 and it perfectly
explains the inner turmoil and
delicate balance of straddling
two worlds while searching for
place. Also, though, it’s heavily
peopled and the number
of names you’ll need to keep
track of can be a challenge. Just
beware, and take this thoughtful,
thought-provoking memoir
as it comes.
Then, once you’ve devoured
these two books, there’s good
news: in the last few months,
many authors have taken this
journey of identity and are willing
to share, no matter who
you are.
“Raceless: In Search
of Family, Identity, and
the Truth About Where I
Belong” by Georgina Lawton
c.2021, Harper Perennial
$17.99 / $21.99 Canada
304 pages
“Surviving the White
Gaze: A Memoir” by
Rebecca Carroll
c.2021, Simon & Schuster
$26.00 / $35.00 Canada
320 pages
Book covers of “Raceless” and “Surviving the White Gaze.” Photo by Terri Schlichenmeyer
Bajan lawyer writes about race, class, murder in first book
By Tangerine Clarke
Barbadian lawyer and
author, Cherie Jones, while discussing
her first novel “How
The One–Armed Sister Sweeps
her House” on Good Morning
America, (GMA) last Friday,
said that it was important to
acknowledge that “we are that
picture perfect paradise that
everyone sees on post cards.”
However, Jones, whose volume
is GMA’s February Book
Club pick, noted that “for some
of these characters, yes, there is
the beautiful beach, but there
are also the problems, that people
in any other country in the
world would experience.”
The fiction explores race and
class, murder and grief, all set
against the backdrop of wealth,
British tourist, and working
class Bajans, while telling the
story of 18-year-old Lala, torn
between two worlds.
The author said being an
attorney helped her to develop
certain skills, such as the ability
to ask good questions. “And I
like to say, the characters, who
are willing to talk to me don’t
always tell the whole truth.”
She said the process started
when she was working in
the United Kingdom. “While
traveling home on the bus,
during the last stage of my
commute, it was very cold, and
basically this character popped
into my head, and started telling
me her story, and by the end
of the bus ride I was convinced
that this was a story I needed to
write,” shared the author, who
has been influenced by authors
including Toni Morrison, Maya
Angelou.
Jones, a past fellowship
awardee of the Vermont Studio
Centre and a recipient of
the Archie Markham Award and
A.M. Heath Prize from Sheffield
Hallam University (UK) delved
into the complex daily lives of
a family of women, their associates
and lovers, as they navigate
the harsh reality of abusive
relationships.
The story that looks into
sexual abuse and domestic violence,
Jones said, was difficult
to write to the extent that she
had to put down the volume,
before picking it up again. “But
it was also a compulsion to finish
writing,” she said, adding
that telling the story of Lala
was therapeutic, and through
her own words, Jones, a victim
of abuse, found healing.
“These women are doing
the best that they can, based
on what they have experienced.
For me, the connection
between the sense of dis-empowerment
and depression, is
very much like losing a voice,
and I thought that was a very
good way, creatively to portray
the trauma that some of these
women face.”
“I do hope that in reading
this story, there is at least one
person perhaps, who find some
value,” she said, advising them,
“to share the experience, the
trauma, the difficult, because
it is only in speaking up and
out that transformation is possible.”
Jones who is working on
a novel set in Trinidad postemancipation,
as well as a collection
of flash fiction, said
Barbadian superstar, Grammy
Award-winner, Rihanna, and
Award-winning movie star,
Viola Davis, are her picks to
record the audio version of
“How The One-Armed Sister
Sweeps Her House.“
The novel that Entertainment
Weekly called ‘devastatingly
good,’ Refinery 29
described as ‘unforgettable,’
and Good Housekeeping called
‘transporting,’ has been critically
acclaimed by several publications
including the The
New York Times, Los Angeles
Times and Washington Post.
Meet Jones on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.
com/cheriejones…
https://www.facebook.com/
CherieJonesWrites
Book cover of “How The
One-Armed Sister Sweeps
her House” by Cherie Jones.
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