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Okay, anyone who knows me as a reader knows this book isn't going to be my cup of tea. I really don't like magical realism no matter how many awards the book has won. And in this other interview with the New Statesman, Roffey also talked about the hybrid form of the novel — where an omniscient narrator appears alongside Aycayia’s verses and David’s journal entries. She says: And that passage made me think of how history has perpetuated this line of division between them, even though they’re family. Until Aycayia, David may have never been invited to her house, even when his Uncle Life is Reggie’s dad, and David and Arcadia are cousins. So, one can wonder why, for example, could it be historic guilt on Arcadia’s part why she never invited him? We know throughout the book that this is something she is aware of that she carries with her. But there is another of David’s reflections that hits it home: And then I read the summary and the author’s note about the events in the book being based on a historical event that happened after a fishing competition in Tobago in 2013 as well as the Taino folk tale of Aycayia and other mermaid lore of the Caribbean, and I became very intrigued! As writers we need to be developing new stories and a new language around climate change for the future. Writers, as culture bearers, can and should, inspire others, particularly the generations under us … Stories help heal humanity. I believe we writers need to be writing for the young, the old and for our planet.
This could have illuminated the narcissism-born blindspots of the explorers and their successors. This could have been a subversive commentary on the damage colonialism has done to generations of Indigenous and Afro Carribean people; lost knowledge, culture, faith, science, etc. This could have been an examination of the fear and exploitation of young women's sexuality, and male entitlement to feminine bodies. This could have been a parable for the effects unfettered capitalism has had on tropical regions, which have been hit head-on with the consequences of climate change already. This could have torn the whole Manifest Destiny idea a new one. On one hand, it can feel discouraging, the amount of work — largely uncompensated “labors of love” — that writers of color and small or independent publishers like Peepal Tree Press have to do to get their work out there. But clearly, the readership is there. And I just love Roffey’s excitement about the contemporary Caribbean and diasporic writing scene, which you kind of talked about too in discovering all these writers. In one of her interviews with Advantages of Age, she says: There’s this one section in the middle of the book that I want to read, where Aycayia is learning Creole English from Arcadia Rain, who is this white Creole woman who’s a descendent of plantation owners and whose decaying mansion she lives in with her deaf, mixed-race son Reggie. Aycayia says: V: Yeah, it’s been kind of rainy in New York too, actually. But of course, it’s getting warm again at the end of summer. So we may have some summer days ahead of us … Now shortlisted (the fabulous) 2021 Republic of Consciousness Prize as well as winner of the (rather better known) 2020 Costa Book of The Year prize and previously shortlisted for the 2020 Goldsmith Prize and 2021 Folio Prize.
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This enchanting tale of a cursed mythical creature and the lonely fisherman who falls in love with her is "a daring, mesmerizing novel … single-handedly bringing magic realism up-to-date (Maggie O'Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet).
Miss Rain nodded. “Sometimes, we women not fair even in our own thoughts about ourselves. You men born from us, and yet you assume power. Is we who give you that power. You see that man, Life? That man make me wait, make me patient.” Freedom is another theme. Acyayia’s transformation frees her of the curse. Arcadia is free from her connections with white people when her house, built by slaves, is destroyed. Arcadia’s deaf and dumb son, Reggie cannot really experience the nastier elements of the world so he free from evil. David, by documenting his side of the story is finally letting his emotions escape so partly this book is a form of release. Writing style was okay, if self-objectifying. Content was out of touch. As far as I'm concerned, this is an accidental horror novel. She is seen as property not as a person. Aycayia turns out to have thoughts and opinions of her own. Arcadia, the only white woman in the book tells her of local history and Aycayia responds: Aycayia is a one of a kind Red colored mermaid. She used to be human, but was punished by jealous wives (cursed by her beauty)and made to live in sea as a mermaid.It’s really not as simple as that, Roffey points out: “I think if you unravel female jealousy, you find the patriarchy. It’s a competition for the alpha male, and we’ve ever been thus. Our patriarchy is highly internalised.” A searing blend of Caribbean magical realism and contemporary examination of misogyny and the reverberations of colonial oppression . . . Roffey’s fable is a moving love story, full of messy, glorious eroticism, but she also shines a light on the dangers of toxic masculinity, racial inequity and the difficulty of understanding our true natures.” —Connie Ogle, Star Tribune
It took me a little while to get used to the style of this book. Some parts are poems and much of it is written in dialect which always takes me a while to get used to. However, once I’d got the hang of it I fell completely in love. I honestly did not want to put this book down and found myself staying up late to read it. The chapters are longer than I usually like, although they were broken into sections which helped. The sections jump between different points of view which helped to tell the tale from different perspectives. I am bilingual and can speak this other type of English when I want to. It’s in my ear and it is the language I grew up with all around me. Trinidadians love speaking their own English; it’s full of poetic forms and can be playful and lyrical and comical. Trinidadians are verbal acrobats, and I love being on the island just to hear the people speak … I totally understand why it won the Costa, however, and I’m genuinely surprised it didn’t make the Women’s Prize longlist even though it wasn’t for me. What makes the novel sing is how Roffey fleshes out mythical goings-on with pin-sharp detail from the real world." - The Observer As Aycayia comes to understand her new body and the new world in which she is now living, David, the man who found and saved her, must deal with the fact that you can take the woman out of the ocean, but you can’t take the ocean out of the woman. And so a mythical adventure unwinds, wrapping us all in its spell.
Rounded down from roughly 4.5 stars ⭐️ Going into this book I never expected I would love it as much as I did. Sentence by sensuous sentence, Roffey builds a verdant, complicated world that is a pleasure to live inside…. You might start to believe in the existence of mermaids.”— The New York Times This is David's first person account from his journal written 40 years later in the local creole, entries from which are interspersed with the third-person narration (mostly in more standard English) and Aycayia’s own thoughts, which are set down, in free verse:
This might sound like a run-of-the-mill, Splash-type story, but I can assure you it is not: “Aycayia sat down on a bench by the lookout on the curve of the road and nibbled on the mango skin. She tugged it down in one neat strip… If she said yes to marry, she could cook in a new way, in an oven. She had already learnt again what heat could do. She knew what fire could do to a potato, a yam, a pumpkin, or even bodi. She could wash the dishes with frothy green liquid…. But in her last life, men could have more than one wife; that was normal…. Would she have to share David one day?” And in keeping with the theme comparisons with other books we’ve read and mentioned in this podcast, I do feel this book is an interesting examination of the impact of patriarchal influence on what it means to be a woman, for example like we read in Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, and how convention has it revolve around men — I mean, take Patricia’s jealousy in the book that mirrors the jealousy of the women who cursed Aycayia, just centuries later. All because of men, and it reminds me of a point Roffey makes in an Irish Times article, where it is noted:
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Thisenchanting tale of a cursed mythical creature and the lonely fisherman who falls in love with her is “a daring, mesmerizing novel…single-handedly bringing magic realism up-to-date” (Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet).
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