Fire in the Canes - Softcover

Lovell, Glenville

3.84

37 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425160408 ISBN 13: 9780425160404

Publisher: Berkley, 1997

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Fifty years after the end of slavery, the tired West Indian village of Monkey Road is awakened when a beautiful woman and her teenage daughter arrive, forever changing their lives and the villagers, in this mystical and magical story. Reprint.

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About the Author:

Glenville Lovell was born in Barbados. He is the author of several prizewinning plays as well as two novels, Song of Night and Fire in the Canes.

From Publishers Weekly:

Restless spirits of slaughtered slaves are as vibrant as any human character in this notable debut. In 1894, after the abolition of slavery, a tiny community on an island reminiscent of the author's native Barbados is still dominated by the local plantation and its cane fields. The return to this community, after a year's absence, of the exotic Peata and her teenage daughter, Midra, inspires a chain of events that alters the uneasy relationships between the landowners and their tenant workers. Before their disappearance, both women had been drawn to Prince Johnson, an itinerant seaman who spurned Peata's advances and seduced Midra, impregnating her; Johnson's body was found just before the two women left. Back in town, the women are initially mistrusted by the locals, yet Brandon Fields, an apprentice blacksmith, is drawn to Midra and her son, Hartseed, eventually marrying her. Hartseed is seven when he meets another of Johnson's children, a half-sister with whom he explores a remote cave in which the pair discover a mysterious mask. The mask releases its secrets selectively: wearing it, the children envision scenes from their family's past and decipher the secrets of their heritage. The mask also leads to the resolution of the rampant and bizarre destruction of the cane fields that has ravaged the plantation. Absorbing tales of other tenants fold not entirely smoothly into the otherwise richly descriptive narrative. Though the novel suffers slightly from harsh, choppy dialogue, it promises a bright literary future for the author.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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