I have been hiding under the duvet all weekend after I look like I decided to take on the England rugby team. The cause of this – Roller Disco at Vauxhall! Battered, bruised and acting like I was 18, there is nothing worse than being drunk on roller skates. Hilarious to fall over at the time – not so hilarious when you wake up the next morning looking like a victim of a terrible crime. I had been warned by many parties (including one very good friend who after being jumped on by someone else fractured her back) not to step into a place best reserved for those with younger bodies. I am glad that I came away relatively unscathed, no doubt many of the more fragile lady like types would have been whisked to A&E.
The mere thought of alcohol simply turned my stomach all weekend and I only managed my golf lesson and a quick run. I have decided to take up running and golf and am convinced about neither. Running I am told I will have to persevere with three times a week – what!? This immediately strikes me as something which is going to interfere with my hair washing. Nevermind the fact I simply get bored of running – what is there to do except pretend that you are going to get mugged and need to run for it [in South London there is a fine line between pretending and the real thing]. Also, twice in the last few days when I have been running I have smelled weed. Some odd teenagers walked past and blew a huge puff at me – so now not only do I have no energy I am also strung out like a cat on catnip when I go running. There has to be an easier way to become a fitness goddess?!
Sod fitness and go with Book Goddess I say! This is pretty easy, I find a quick sneer in the direction of any of your friends settling down with some Galaxy and a Cecila Ahern number does the trick. Followed by a sentence like ‘You know if you want to cry into your Kleenex reading romance, try Tess of the D’Urbervilles?’ Sorted – your friends will think you are rude, pretentious and well read all in one. Just don’t get caught telling people when drunk that Esio Trot is like one of the ‘best books of all time’ a few weeks later. So if I’m not Jane Fonda this week at least you can have something to lord over your friends with instead.
The Long Song by Andrea Levy has been released to rave reviews, born in England to Jamaican parents she grew up in London. If you are unfamiliar with Levy’s other works she reflects the experiences of Black Britons and their history which connects them to the Caribbean. For an author who normally turns her hand to entertaining reads the topic of slavery is a hard one to imagine her undertaking.
The story is about July, a mullatto women born as the product of her mother Kitty’s rape by her father Tam Dewar the Scottish overseer of a sugar cane plantation. The backdrop is the 19th Century plantation called Amity, and July begins to weave the tale of her once life there. Set to go about life as she was brought into it, without control, July soon catches the eye of the plantation owner’s sister and is brought into service as her ladies maid. Her name is changed to a much more appropriate Marguerite and she is forced to work through the ridiculous motions of English Aristocratic life abroad for her mistress Caroline.
Caroline is a naive idiot, who although you feel pangs of pity for, is never quite overwhelming enough for you to actually care about her. Her new husband, Robert, is a good looking clergyman’s son. Caroline is besotted with him and he is taken with July. This love triangle fuels the story on and leaves the reader to make the judgements on the characters faults.
The everyday endurances of the slave are told by July as it is her story which is the focus of the novel not the political events soon to arise that surround it. Their shocking existence of living is swiftly change by Baptist War in 1831. The struggle for freedom begins and the road to change July witnesses from the plantation of Amity (no matter how deluded her mistress is about the change in times). The change comes with uproar and confusion and within this July begins a courtship with the freed slave Nimrod in forbidden circumstances but his fateful end is detailed in the book brought on by the horrific uprisings. Finally, for the slaves their freedom is secured in 1838.
The novel is set against another story, that of July’s son, Thomas, who wishes to publish his Mother’s tale. Now a printer in England after his Mother abandoned him on a minster’s doorstep he wants the book nicely bound with a sugar cane on the cover. His Mother and he do not see eye to eye on the matter, at great amusement value for the reader. After all she doesn’t want her tale to be puffed up twaddle for a white lady’s hand. Will she tell the tale how he wants it told or will she fall into the age old trap of weaving the yarn of a tale for a better story?
This book is a fantastic read for both those fans of Levy and those yet to experience her writing talents.
July
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
