Abeng
by
Michelle Cliff
...a striking and powerful book.
Abeng is a coming-of-age story about a bi-racial
adolescent girl in Jamaica who must face questions of race, class,
sexuality, dominant ideology and identity. The book is also a
stirring exploration of the fragility of friendship; it depicts
trust, betrayal, and redemption. It is also a geography of the
complexity and nuance of family. There are very few books that can
handle such complex subject matter with the honesty and lyricism
found here. I read this book several years ago and it has stayed
with me. I should point out that it is at times disturbing, but
also funny, moving, and thought-provoking. Sometimes I return to
the last passages since they so beautifully convey the poignancy
of childhood. Ultimately the book traces the early formation of
the protagonist's revolutionary consciousness.
The plot meanders somewhat and skirts
ideological analysis. However, in the end all the strands dovetail
beautifully. The language, imagery, and symbolism are rich. Abeng
shows us how our hearts and minds are born of the world around us,
but also that we can change that world by discovering new worlds
inside of us. -- Julie Bolt
The
Store of a Million Items : Stories by
Michelle Cliff
In The Store of a Million Items,
Jamaican-American writer Michelle Cliff writes about a childhood
spent on two islands--Jamaica and Manhattan. Cliff examines the
gaps between cultures, genders, and generations in each of these
11 succinct, lyrical tales. These stories contrast the abundance
and racism of America during the 1950s and 1960s with life in
Jamaica during the same period. In the title story, the narrator
describes how the arrival of new products at the Store of a
Million Items marked the changes of seasons for children in her
New York neighborhood. Instead of spring, summer, winter, and
fall, they had yo-yo season, water-gun season, and flexible-flyer
season. In that story and in "Down the Shore," the
author adeptly describes the secret worlds children inhabit. In
"Contagious Melancholia" and "Stan's Speed
Shop," Cliff examines people who are just plain different.
"Stan's Speed Shop" is about an encounter between a
crazy but harmless rich white man and a young black girl, who
reflects that her family is packed with odd characters whose
eccentricities are a product of their difficult lives: "We
originated in the place where the sun never set and the blood
never dried. Fragility was almost a point of honor, evidence of
our delicacy against cruelty. Whatever happened, we weren't to
blame, nor were we to make any change." Michelle Cliff's
stories are not packed with action and plot, but they are full of
fascinating, disappointed people and are told from a perspective
that is both insightful and political. --Jill Marquis
