A Tale of Grit and Inspiration

Oct 11, 2020 Book Review…, News

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Book: Long Walk to Cherry Gardens
Author: Andrene Bonner
Critic: Glenville Ashby, PhD

Away from Jamaica’s bucolic setting is Olympic Gardens, a rough, urban town, and home to the precocious Roderick Brisset. Lonesome and abused by his Aunt Hope, he fights for meaning in a harsh world drenched in poverty, a world where criminals and the police are indistinguishable. As his right to an education erodes, he faces a sempiternal life as a hireling at his Aunt’s shop, existing by the sweat of his brow; her refrain ever preying on his young mind: “The boy head tough, him can’t learn a thing. School is not for everybody. You know how long it took him to figure out how to write up the grocery list for me to take to the market?” Roderick resists, “Mi don’t want to live like this. One day me find mi father,” he bemoans. “One day mama will take me back so me can play a bush with mi brodda and sista them.”
But he is condemned to live with Aunt Hope, a self-serving, abusive woman. Scenes of her cruelty are graphic. In one encounter, “Hope slapped [Roderick] across his face with a flourish; once to the left cheek with the palm of her hand and a rapid return to the other cheek with the back of her hand. Roderick’s head rocked left and right faster than a chicken that spotted a mongoose.” And in another appalling scene, Roderick reluctantly shows off a gaping wound. “Lift up your shirt and show daddy your side,” his friend Chloe beckons.
“When he lifted his shirt, exposed the draining wound, Mr. Goodman gasped at the fetid smell.
“How did this happen?”
“Aunt Hope last beating.”
“Did she try to put medicine on it to make it heal?”
“No…”
But Roderick is no flaneur. He is driven to right a gross injustice and succeed in life. Despite his travails he is loquacious, buoyant and winsome; his alacrity infectious.
As a raconteur, author Andrene Booner is sound, her multilayered message oozes with subliminal resonance that is markedly detailed and rich in imagery.
The sociological underbelly of her work surfaces at every turn. In fact, the tale of Roderick is told against the wanton abuse of Rastafari. When Roderick flees the clutches of his aunt, he finds grounding in the musical lamentations of their musicians. Escapism he finds in the drums of Nyabingi.
“I feel like I want to just jump up and down and scream loud, loud, loud!”
His is a cry for knowledge, for identity. Amid his pain, he seeks to unravel a mystery: the identity of his father. A photo found in his Aunt’s house offers leads. He is flummoxed. The mystery thickens but Bonner deftly holds her hand and we must wait for that revelation.
Roderick is the Tarot’s Hanged Man, dangling, in limbo, but seeking a cornerstone. Starved of mamatha (a mother’s love), he finds comfort in sympathetic neighbours and Chloe. The winds of expectations blow and Roderick is hopeful to fulfill his ambition. Not surprisingly, his dreams take on a prophetic tone, filled with counsel from a legendary Maroon. He must pursue his studies in a collegiate setting. And away from school, he eagerly drinks from the fountain of knowledge. His supporters are many. In lock-step, they deliver the same message: Roderick must succeed.
Bonner captures the existential severity of Roderick’s condition without surrendering his innocence and joie de vivre.
Indeed, there is much to be said for the human spirit, its steadfastness and determination to surmount every challenge. Attentively, Roderick listens to a recitation of ‘If We Must Die by Claude McKay,’ the words resonating in his every fiber.
“If we must die—let it not be like hogs…Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; then even the monsters we defy, shall be constrained to honour us…Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!’”
Alarmingly, Roderick’s hardship extends beyond his homestead. He faces a rugged society where corruption runs amok and where law enforcement are as putrid as those they are sworn to apprehend. The murder of Roderick’s friend at their hands and, as witness to the horrific stabbing of someone he adores, he recoils in turmoil, crying out, “I can’t take this anymore. First Lij. Now Mona. What I must do with this wickedness? This wicked idiot town is getting too rough for me. I can’t breathe in the heat. It lock up my throat. Food don’t nice no more. Why? Why? Why everybody who love me get hurt? What wrong with me.”
His thirst for vengeance is palpable and is a vulnerability that could lead to the bowels of the underworld. Surely, his future hangs in the balance.
But he is prodded toward reason, his aunt Tata touches him like no other. “Steady yourself. Steady yourself,” she beseeches. “Violence is not the answer. You must first learn how to take care of yourself and then take care of your community and young women like Mona. There is always work to do. Do not allow your mind to be idle, rubbish will pile up in it.”
Roderick summons his resolve and begins working assiduously at passing the Common Entrance Examination, even eyeing a scholarship.
We can only anticipate a denouement befitting this astute and indomitable lad.
No doubt, ‘Long Walk to Cherry Gardens’ brims with sheer inspiration and proves a monumental triumph for Bonner.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Feedback: [email protected] or follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby

 

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