Patsy
– Nicole Dennis-Benn
Publication
date: June 4th 2019
ISBN:
1631495631 / ISBN13: 9781631495632
Publisher: Oneworld
Synopsis
From
award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn comes this beautifully
layered portrait of motherhood, immigration and sacrifice
For Patsy, a visa to America is her ticket to freedom, a passport to the 'land of opportunity'. She yearns to be reunited with Cicely, her oldest friend and secret lover, but her plans do not include her religious mother or even her young daughter, Tru. As Patsy struggles to survive as an undocumented migrant, Tru grapples with her own questions of identity and sexuality. Can she ever understand, or even forgive, her mother's decision to leave?
Dancing between the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy is the story of what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and, ultimately, a survivor. A passionate, moving and fiercely urgent novel tracing threads of love that stretch across years and oceans.
For Patsy, a visa to America is her ticket to freedom, a passport to the 'land of opportunity'. She yearns to be reunited with Cicely, her oldest friend and secret lover, but her plans do not include her religious mother or even her young daughter, Tru. As Patsy struggles to survive as an undocumented migrant, Tru grapples with her own questions of identity and sexuality. Can she ever understand, or even forgive, her mother's decision to leave?
Dancing between the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy is the story of what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and, ultimately, a survivor. A passionate, moving and fiercely urgent novel tracing threads of love that stretch across years and oceans.
Review
This
book raises so many uncomfortable, but necessary questions from the
get-go. Can you maintain a sense of self while juggling motherhood?
It it ever selfish to hope for better at all costs? Is home a fixed
place?
Such are the questions which follow the lives of two women, Patsy, a mother who leaves Jamaica in the
early 90's to pursue a new life in New York and her then 6 year old
daughter Tru who she leaves behind in small town Pennyfield.
The alternating chapters between both women draw tender parallels; both
in doubts regarding their identities as queer black women in
environments where is is safer to remain invisible to the eye. For
Patsy, being undocumented leads to years of intense loneliness and destructive coping mechanisms stemming from unresolved trauma,
disillusionment of the big city and an unrequited love. For Tru, the
abandonment of her mother and pressures of preformative femininity
lead to her too becoming an outsider.
Patsy definitely sheds light on some of the uncomfortable truths about
immigration and the everyday struggle for those who leave and other
left behind. It is quite hefty but the way Nicole writes leaves you
feeling winded like an emotional suckerpunch. I highly recommend.
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