Easy in the Islands

My wife and I were asked to read this book of short stories before our first trip to the Caribbean. I thought it was amusing and interesting throughout. No wonder it won the National Book Award for First Fiction. With shades of American writing from the south, these short stories convey the dilemmas, humor, and enigmas of being a whole person mutated by time, place, temperature, sea, flowers, gender, and color. Wonderful stuff. You won't go wrong.

I can't believe this book is out of print, it is by far the most accurate book on the culture of the Caribbean. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in St. Vincent in the Caribbean and I believe the author also served in the same area in the Peace Corps. With every short chapter, i was amazed at how he captured the essence of life in the region. I have bought this book for all my friends and family who asked me what it was like to live in the Caribbean, this book is a true treasure.

Diving head first into the collection of short stories that together embody the spirit and adventurous energy of the islands, I swam in the wonderfully clever landscape that Shacochis has painted for his readers. He writes with such ease, his characters seemingly existed before their stories were created. More than this, Shacochis does a dream-like job of taking the reader on an adventure, which is overall, the appeal of islands.Each more independent than the last, the stories flow effortlesly into the reader's subconscious, relaxing the muscles, and wandering the islands in the reader's mind. It is as if the landscape itself acts as a continuously appearing character, simply asking the reader to open up to new and exciting experience.I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys leaving their mind, if only for a brief while, to swallow down the purity of a presumed paradise. Don't hesitate on this one, turn off the television, and get on board for "Easy in the Islands". Who knows, you just might not want to leave once you get there. It is that easy!