How to Love a Jamaican

Alexia Arthurs

2018 • 190 pages

Ratings2

Average rating4.5

Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life. In "Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands," an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In "Mash Up Love," a twin's chance sighting of his estranged brother--the prodigal son of the family--stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In "Bad Behavior," a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In "Mermaid River," a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In "The Ghost of Jia Yi," a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in "Shirley from a Small Place," a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother's big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.

This collection of short stories sweeps from close-knit island communities on Jamaica to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns. In them, Arthurs forms a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life. -- adapted from jacket

Genre

LGBTQ

Moods

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Alysses

How To Love A Jamaican, a compilation of short stories, speaks to various experiences and issues being grappled with by both the Jamaican Diaspora and Jamaicans still on the island. These stories explore sexuality, fidelity, success and what that looks like for different individuals, gentrification, travel, where to build roots, body image, love, self- love, self-discovery, motherhood, fatherhood, the immigrant experience, one foot here and one foot there.

I recommend the audiobook. It was narrated by different voices and that along with the actual story being told kept me engaged.

I received a digital copy via the publisher via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review. At the time of this review, I audiobooked this from my library and is based on that copy.

August 24, 2022

Fia

I received the ARC from Ballantine Books and I'm glad I did. There is beauty and sadness in Arthurs' stories. For me, her stories are eye opening for anyone who isn't a foreigner in America (perhaps some who are). The struggles here, the decision to come and/or stay, the life one leaves for a better one here only to discover what they must give up in order to stay – sometimes their children so they may work, sometimes their soul – marrying to stay here and not for love, are woven beautifully through this collection. I found the irony of leaving Jamaica for a better life, but sending a child back home to rid them of their Americanize self heartbreaking, but admirable. Many of her stories are stuck in my mind. Like many, I look forward to her next body of work, be it another collection or a novel.

May 14, 2018