The True History of Paradise

Political unrest and violence in early 1980s Jamaica serve as the backdrop for a young woman's struggle to come to terms with her past and her country's history in Cezair-Thompson's strong debut novel. Jean Landing's island ancestry goes back to the late 17th century, and although in many ways she feels inextricably bound to Jamaica, the political turmoil makes her question whether she can continue to live in her native land. A series of profoundly unsettling events--she is knifed by thugs, sees a bystander shot by a soldier during a minor traffic accident, tearfully keeps vigil over her best friend Faye's hospital bed after Faye is raped and assaulted--seems portentous. But her talented sister Lana's tragic death is the catalyst to Jean's angst-ridden decision to leave her homeland and seek shelter with her stateside lover, a married man. Paul, her longtime neighbor, confidante and dear friend, drives her across the island to meet her departing flight. During the journey, they reflect on Lana, whose manic depressive illness contributed to her fiery death. Vignettes in the many voices of Jean's ancestors (Scottish, Chinese, Indian, Creole and African) punctuate the text, their eccentricities lending credence to the probably hereditary effects of mental instability and granting perspective to Jean's weighty decision. It falls to those voices to liven up the narrative when her sometimes overly earnest self-reflections begin to stall the momentum of the cross-island journey. Born in Jamaica, Thompson's use of island patois is robust and authentic. She manages to depict with vivid immediacy Jamaica's terrors and seductions, portraying a society in which poverty is endemic, and a sense of menace exists in a setting of paradisal beauty. Agent, Susan Bergholz. (Aug.) FYI: Cezair-Thompson's first screenplay, Photo Finish, was sold to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions.