Show Me a Mountain

Just a few weeks ago, PBS aired a documentary about a woman of Chinese and Jamaican ethnicity that goes on several trips to learn more about her ancestors. I happened to pick up Kerry Young's novel, “Show Me A Mountain” just beforehand and had to hold off until I finished a book club book.

Kerry Young is also of Chinese-Jamaican descent and now lives in England as highly-regarded professor and author of previous books. I was very excited to read this book and more stories about this ethnic group I had only recently learned about. What I got in the first 50 pages was staccato writing from the point of view of a prepubescent and then pubescent girl whose mother is abusive. Staccato writing can be very effective, but pages and pages of it is hard to process.

I decided to abandon this book and try another of Kerry Young's titles, “Pao,” which won a few awards and is a story about a Chinese immigrant to Jamaica.

If anyone reads this review and can encourage me to keep going because the book gets better, please do!