Song of Night - Hardcover

Glenville Lovell

3.95

39 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569471223 ISBN 13: 9781569471227

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

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When Night approaches Amanda, an African-American tourist on holiday in Barbados, she had only intended to sell her a dress, yet soon she realizes that their chance encounter is something very special and, as things develop, both women come to know their lives will never be the same again.

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Review:

In this tough Caribbean tale, Cyan Cattlewash's world begins to fall apart when she is only a child. Nicknamed Night because she's so dark, Cyan is her father's darling girl. But then her father is executed for murdering a man that his wife had flirted with, and her sister--a bright girl who is sent away to school with every penny the family has saved--dies from a failed abortion.

Cyan ends her turbulent relationship with her mother and lives alone. When she becomes pregnant by the only man she ever loved, she discovers that she can't bear the thought of being a mother, yet is terrorized by the idea of terminating the pregnancy, after what happened to her sister.

Her American friend, Koko, has fled anonymity in the United States for relative fame and admiration among the people of Barbados. Through her remaining ties in the States, Koko arranges for an American woman named Amanda to adopt Cyan's baby. When the baby arrives, Cyan refuses to see her, afraid at some deep level that the baby will take hold of her battered affections, and Amanda makes preparations to leave with her newly adopted daughter. Yet Cyan can't stop thinking about her baby, and her thoughts push her to reenact the violence that she had tried to place behind her. --Susan Swartwout

From Kirkus Reviews:

From a Caribbean-born writer (Fire in the Canes, 1997), a maudlin tale of a passionate woman whose strong emotions eventually lead to tragedy. The story of Cyan, or Night, the young black woman who loves to walk along the beach in starlight, is set in Barbados, a place where tourists are the new imperialists. Their hotels defile the ocean with sewage, their needs push the local men into menial jobs, and they use the women as prostitutes. They create an angry resentment among the locals, but few of them react as violently as the heavily pregnant Cyan. As the story begins, she has arranged to meet Amanda, an African-American tourist, who wants to buy her handiwork. Later, Cyan's neighbors see her being taken from her home by police. (Cyan's father, Steel, was hanged when she was 18 for murdering a man whod been flirting with his wife.) The story of Cyans journey to her arrest is told in luminous prose that evokes the island but is less successful in creating credible characters. Cyans mother, Obe, is a study in contradictions: she fled an abusive man before marrying Steel; she burned Cyans hand as punishment when a neighbor accused the girl of lying; and when Steel was buried, she took up with other men. Cyan, angry and hurt, both loves and hates her mother. After they quarrel, Obe moves out and, along the way, works for a local doctor and his African- American wife; falls in love with Breeze, a local hustler; and then, deserted by him, begs tourists for money. A brief reunion with Breeze leads to pregnancy and a decision to give her baby to a visiting African-American. When a distraught Cyan changes her mind, though, its too latethe child is gone. Cyan has no choice but to complete the cycle of destruction that began before she was born. Despite some fine passages, generally overwritten and overwrought. -- Copyright �1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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