Small Island

Although I read the reviews, this is the first time I have written one. I am an avid reader and went back to this site to see if there is a sequel to this book, I enjoyed it so much. When I read some of the negative reviews, I felt compelled to give my positive opinion. This book began slowly but quickly became engrossing. In retrospect the slow beginning added to the build up of the flavor of Jamaican life in contrast with that of life in 1948 England. Each of the characters was human to me. They each had unique perceptions (common in youth) that were shattered over the course of the book, each in different ways. I ended the book with a warm feeling for all of the characters and a strong sense of wondering what will happen next. It amazed me that someone could feel confident enough to write a review not even reading the entire book! I read it all and I'm looking for more of the same! Great job!

I loved this book! It is so dense and so unbelievably full of human folly that I cannot recommend it highly enough. Andrea Levy obviously did much historical research concerning the Jamaicans that came to England in the 40's to fight in the war. Not only are there prejudices and atrocities, but also sincere endearment concerning the flawed humanity of ALL of the characters. Another thing that makes this book absolutely fantastic is that it is told by four different narrators, therefore, the perspectives are constantly changing and making the reader feel something new from chapter to chapter. Levy's writing is realistic and vividly descriptive. Events within the novel are both wildly humorous and impossibly sad. In other words, I think she's done a phenomenal job of making sure her characters are not two dimensional. They are real, and because of that, one is able to deeply care for (and sometimes hate) them, which is what a true fictional experience is about. I believe Levy is a true master of her craft and I would read further works without reservation. This is a truly rich and rewarding read. Enjoy!

Andrea Levy's Whitbread and Orange Prize-winning novel has emigrated from England to American shores with well-deserved ballyhoo. Levy has intricately woven the lives of four small islanders --- two from Jamaica, two from England --- into a tapestry of time and place so intimate and full of color that it lingers in the reader's memory long after closing the cover. Gilbert Joseph, a patriotic, mixed race Jamaican subject of the British crown, enlists in the RAF during World War II. When he returns to Jamaica after serving in England, his small island seems hopelessly behind the times and beneath his acquired knowledge and skills. Hortense Roberts, half white, half black, has received higher education in Kingston College and sees herself as more British than native, therefore deserving more of life than her small island can offer. Hortense and Gilbert are attracted to each other, not by lust but by desire of a better life, and forge their future in London through a financial arrangement. On another small island, England, Queenie is the rural daughter of a butcher who flees to London to marry the bland but middle-class banker Bernard, who also feels called to duty and enlists. Queenie, now on her own, takes in bombed-out East End refugees, much to the dismay of the neighbors. When the war ends and Bernard fails to return, Queenie sublets their large home to immigrants, thus befriending Gilbert and Hortense and other coloreds. When Bernard finally does turn up, the cultural and racial clash, which has been simmering throughout the story, comes to a head. Writing in the four voices of each main character, Levy humorously portrays each as they see themselves and one another, presenting their foibles as great attributes or horrendous faults, depending on who is speaking. Gilbert Joseph is a charming, funny and loving gentle man, or a bumbling idiot; a brilliant man with a future as a lawyer, or a black lackey truck driver. Hortense is a proper British woman with high language skills, or a gaudily dressed peasant barely capable of clear thought or speech. Bernard and Queenie are as colorfully drawn and endearing in their painfully human situations. Levy fleshes out these four characters with such clarity and purpose as to bring them fully to life in a story that swings back and forth from wartime to postwar England and Jamaica. In less skillful hands, the plot would be a quagmire to navigate, but in SMALL ISLAND we are treated to a journey of discovery through the hopes and aspirations of immigrants and the movement that was the result of a changed world after World War II. --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

Andrea Levy has exhibited refined novelistic skill in structuring Small Island to fall into the past of World War II and the future of 1948 as she unfolds the inner thinking, history, and emotions of her well-wrought primary characters, Gilbert and Hortense, who are Jamaican, and Queenie and Bernard, who are British. The couples are bound together in ways that aren't immediately apparent. They all originate from small islands, both economically limited. They are all subjects of the British empire. The blatant and harsh racism shown to Gilbert is echoed by Gilbert's naive perceptions of the English. The narrative is lively and interesting and kept sparking by Levy's fine poetic images, excellent ear for dialogue, and attention to keenly observed details. It's a quick and engaging read. This is a well-written and original work that deserves many readers' attention. Its broad and important themes of racism, alienation, and cultural clashes are handled with a clear eye that leaves enough room for humor and irony. Well done.

Winner of the UK's Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, the Orange Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Small Island may soon find deserved success in the US, too. Set in London in 1948, it focuses on the diaspora of Jamaicans, who, escaping economic hardship on their own "small island," move to England, the Mother Country, for which the men have fought during World War II. Their reception is not the warm embrace they have hoped for, nor are the opportunities for success as plentiful as they have dreamed. Four characters alternate points of view, telling their stories with an honesty and vibrancy that make the tragicomedy of their lives both realistic and emotionally involving. Queenie Bligh, a white woman with a mentally ill father-in-law, takes in boarders when her husband Bernard does not return from war in India. Most of her boarders are black immigrants from the Caribbean, desperate men and women willing to pay high prices for small rooms. Gilbert Joseph, a Jamaican who participated in the Battle of Britain, is one of Queenie's tenants, working as a truck driver, the only job available to him. Gilbert's bride Hortense arrives from Jamaica with her heavy trunk a few months later, ready to show London her superior "British" manners. When Queenie's husband Bernard unexpectedly returns shortly thereafter, life at Queenie's changes forever. These four characters, through their often touching first-person narratives, convey their hopes and dreams for the future, revealing, as their stories intersect, their personalities, family backgrounds, experiences in love, commitments to the Mother Country, economic predicaments, and, not incidentally, their prejudices. Levy imbues this novel with fine detail, both in her descriptions of the physical surroundings and in the emotional subtleties with which her characters react to their postwar lives. Her ear for dialogue is exquisite, both in the everyday speech of Londoners and in the dialect and sentence patterns of Jamaicans. Casual, conversational tones bring the characters to life, while Gilbert's recognition of "the way things are" keeps the novel from becoming polemical or strident, despite its thematic emphasis on prejudice and injustice. Levy's touch is light, often humorous, and her scenes of amusing irony are nicely balanced by scenes of high drama. The author's tendency to tie her male characters to real, historical events--the Hindu/Muslim riots in Calcutta (experienced by Bernard) and a race-based riot at a London movie theater (experienced by Gilbert)--and her reliance on extreme coincidence to conclude the action, do occasionally feel intrusive and manipulative, but this is a minor quibble. This hugely conceived novel has everything going for it--well-drawn characters, vivid descriptions of an unusual time in postwar London, important themes which are not beaten to death, and lively action and interactions which keep the reader constantly involved. Mary Whipple