Book #53: Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Margot is working at a hotel, making a living and getting promotions by working as a prostitute, which allows her sister Thandi to attend school, but Thandi is more interested in art and her boyfriend Charles than her own studies. Margot is also in relationships with both her manager and pimp Alphonse, and another woman, Verdene. Their mother Delores runs a market stall, but seems to take less responsibility with mothering her daughters.
That's just a brief summary of some of the main characters in this debut novel set in Jamaica, which immerses the reader in its location, with its vivid descriptions right from the start.
I noticed there were a lot of plot strands and themes to keep up with, including a storyline involving a new hotel development, and also subjects of race, and even rape. Thandi is said to be trying to bleach her skin (similar to what Michael Jackson famously did) and is also said to be rape victim. There is also a feminist commentary, mostly about old-fashioned values involving gender roles; at one point Delores is angry at her mother because she only sent her brother to school, "because he was a boy" whereas she didn't get the opportunities that he had.
I mostly enjoyed this book, but found it incredibly hard at times because of its densely-written narrative, and the fact that most of the characters' dialogue was written in Jamaican patois; I felt that I had to do a lot of "reading between the lines" to figure out what was happening at times. However, the book did manage to create several memorable characters. It feels like a book that I would have to read all over again at some point, to see if I spot anything I missed.
View all my reviews