Small Island

by Andrea Levy

I very much enjoyed this. What I found especially refreshing was the way the story was told by using different perspectives by making the main characters tell it, alternately.

Queenie marries into mediocrity to escape life and work at her father's slaughterhouse. After her husband goes off to join the Royal Air Force in WW II, she tries to make the best ofher situation in a bombed out London area by renting out rooms. Her choice of lodgers does not sit well with her neighbors that want the street to remain 'respectable'.

Hortense wants to escape her native Jamaica and dreams of a life in England. She jumps at the first chance she sees that might get her there - by marrying a man she believes will provide a good life for her abroad. However, England turns out not at all like she imagined. She is naive and doesn't initially understand why she should not be trated like the well-bred lady she fancies herself to be. Worse, even, when applying for a teaching position she is treated badly and practically laughed out of the office.

Gilbert, Queenie's lodger, joined the RAF to fight for his 'mother country' England, despite the fact that he is from Jamaica and as unwelcome in the military as he is in London because of the color of his skin. Failing to find housing his wife deems 'proper', as well as finding employment as something better than a driver, he is trying to keep everything together and make the best of the situation for himself and for Hortense.

Bernard, Queenie's bank clerk husband, went off to war because it is 'the right thing to do'. he cannot deal with the horrors of war and its aftermith while stationed in India. After his return to England it takes him a full two years before returning to his home only to find that his wife has rented out room to 'darkies' and prostitutes. This does not sit well with his middle-class upbringing and his firm belief that these 'darkies' are as far beneath him as the Indian 'coolies'.

The story is riddled with conflicts and disappointmens. The different perspectives move the story in the parts called '1948' along nicely, as none of the time periods told of are reapeated through the voice of another character. In the chapters entitled 'Before' we hear the individual histories of the main characters.

Also recommended: Andrea Levy's follow up to Small Island, entitled The Long Song.

9/10