SWEET HOME, JAMAICA

By Claudette Beckford-Brady

 SYNOPSIS

 A narrative portrayal of the life of a Jamaican-born young woman growing up in London in the Seventies and Eighties, and the path her life takes through to the early Nineties.     

At age thirteen Michelle Freeman belatedly learns that her father’s wife is not her biological mother, and sets the wheels in motion to try and find out where her real mother is, and why she is not being raised by her.

The new-found knowledge causes a rift between her and her parents, particularly her step-mother, Mavis, and an animosity develops between them.  But Michelle’s boyfriend, Clive, promotes peace, and little by little Michelle grows to accept Mavis as her mother, until they eventually become friends.  But she is still determined to find her biological mother, and now Mavis, has offered to help her.

After she finds members of her maternal family living in the UK, she links up with them and they begin to search in earnest for her mother, Delisia.  In the search, she finds her extended maternal family, experiences Jamaican country life, and slowly discovers her ‘Jamaican-ness,’ and her burgeoning love for the island of her birth, which she had left when she was only three years old.

She discovers that her own birth had been the source of bitter contention between her mother and her family.  Delisia had left home and vanished without a trace, and Michelle had been raised by her father, and his wife.

After the visit to Jamaica she decides that she would like to live and work there.  She returns to the UK to complete her education and gather some work experience.  She enters her chosen career field of journalism, and is excited when a Jamaican friend suggests that they start their own publication on the island.  She relocates to her beloved island and settles down to business.

All is not plain sailing, however; she belatedly realises that Jamaica is not the idyllic paradise she had supposed, as she experiences jealousy, culture-shock, and prejudice, but against all these odds, she establishes herself in a successful business, and eventually finds love and fulfilment in her true ‘Sweet Home.’

Throughout the story the search for her biological mother continues until the family has exhausted all avenues.  When Michelle no longer expects to ever find her, Delisia is spotted and accosted.  Michelle’s fantasies of the happy reunion are not realised, and she and Delisia develop an antipathy toward each other.

 The story covers the eighteen years from 1974 through 1992 and touches on many aspects of life in Britain from the perspective of a British-Jamaican family; the Brixton

Riots of 1981 and the socio-economic problems that faced young Blacks in Britain.  It touches a little on abusive relationships and teenage pregnancy, and the Rastafarian religion.  It also gives a brief perspective of the socio-political climate in Jamaica, and the lives of the privileged and the not-so-privileged.

Pages: 304 Imprint: Vanguard Press ISBN: 9781843863441 

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Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Ltd