The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 24 October 2014
by Paule Marshall
Avey Johnson is taking a leap. In the opening pages of this moving novel, Avey is on a Carribean cruise, and, mid-journey, she decides to abandon ship on the island of Grenada. She is under the spell of some mysterious pressure from within her own aging body. Avey is a widow of some years, in her sixties, and slowly awakening from the long journey of her marriage. Now, feeling pressed into action that even she does not expect nor entirely understand, she leaves behind two old friends on the ship, goes ashore with the intent of merely flying home, and is slowly drawn into the alien, but somehow familiar, life of the island and its cheerfully embracing peoples. Avey has the chance to reflect upon her life, with her husband, in Brooklyn. His struggles to be a good man for her and their three daughters eventually draw him away from the charming and spirited man she married. He succeeds. They do well in a world stacked against the aspirations of this African-American family. And now he is gone. But Avey feels something was lost, pressed down into a sour mass of regret within her. When it comes bursting forth, somewhere on the sea, it isn't a pretty sight. But the transformation opens Avey up to a new experience, a new connection to her history and ancient culture. And so, she sails again, this time for the even smaller rum-soaked island of Carriacou. The book is so very gentle to Avey, one cannot but know that author Paule Marshall feels powerfully sympathetic to her creation. There is an emotional pull to the writing, lyrical, metaphorical, and connected to something deep and moving. It is a small book, a brief passage in the life of its protagonists, and yet it evokes the great complex journey of living. Recommended.
(For this book, Marshall was awarded an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1984.)