EARL MCKENZIE

In this, his third collection of stories, Earl McKenzie tours the rural Jamaican world in which he was born and raised, the island's towns, and even ventures to Toronto, Canada. The characters we meet include young scholars who are caught up in the turbulence of cultural relativism, homophobia and madness, the nature of evil and generational conflicts about religious beliefs. We meet a deaconess who takes in a mentally ill woman from streets, a loner who longs for riches and has a dream which changes his life, and an aging farm worker whose goal is to get one more shot at earning some money in the United States. We are shown the impact of political violence on the life of a Rastafarian, and we meet a group of men in the country who are determined to carry out the wishes of a dead man. We even meet an angry Taino ghost. These stories will entertain, disturb as well as provoke thought.