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A review by gabsi77
Every Light in the House Burnin' by Andrea Levy
5.0
Call me slow, but it took me a while to catch on to the whole past/present way she presents the book. Arguably, you could also call me slow for just jumping onto the Andrea Levy train, but that’s a whole other story. The point is, I finally did and it’s official, I’m a fan.
This book has been sitting on my bookshelf in the country for God alone knows how long and when I was in the country two weeks ago to visit my family, I decided to pick it up and give it a go.
For the first few chapters, I was a little lost and couldn’t get a good sense of time and place in the book (because of the past/present thing), however I completely own that, because I tend to be a bit unobservant when it comes to things I consider superfluous to the story - in this case the chapter headings and then separate headings she gave each anecdotal section which takes place in the past. Had I paid a little more attention I might have caught on faster.
The book is set in England, where Angela was born and raised. Her father sailed to England, on the Empire Windrush in 1948, in search of a better life. The book navigates Angela’s present challenge in assisting her mother with caring for her father who has become seriously ill, while also telling stories of Angela’s past growing up on a council estate in Highbury.
As a Jamaican, I think everyone can relate to the migration in search of a better life thing, and for me it was interesting reading about that experience because most of the family members I know who’ve migrated went to the United States. Growing up in the 90s and 2000s in a post-independent Jamaica, England just had (in my opinion) less of an influence and the US was where it was at. But for my parents and grandparent’s generation, living in colonial Jamaica, through independence and then early post-independent Jamaica, England would’ve still held a significant role and I know they had family who migrated there. That said, the book shows me what life might have been like for my grandparent’s relatives who did move to England.
The writing throughout the entire book is lovely, it just flows. You know when your spirit just takes to something? My spirit took to this book. It’s a great palate cleanser of a story, not too long, well-written and has, for me and many other Jamaicans, the familiarity of home. The memory of being scrubbed clean and dressed in your Sunday best to go to church, the smell of stew peas on the stove and comforting phrases from mummy like “where there’s life, there’s hope”. The entire book was like a hug from a Jamaican granny (if you had the hugging kind) and I honestly can’t wait to read more of her work.
This book has been sitting on my bookshelf in the country for God alone knows how long and when I was in the country two weeks ago to visit my family, I decided to pick it up and give it a go.
For the first few chapters, I was a little lost and couldn’t get a good sense of time and place in the book (because of the past/present thing), however I completely own that, because I tend to be a bit unobservant when it comes to things I consider superfluous to the story - in this case the chapter headings and then separate headings she gave each anecdotal section which takes place in the past. Had I paid a little more attention I might have caught on faster.
The book is set in England, where Angela was born and raised. Her father sailed to England, on the Empire Windrush in 1948, in search of a better life. The book navigates Angela’s present challenge in assisting her mother with caring for her father who has become seriously ill, while also telling stories of Angela’s past growing up on a council estate in Highbury.
As a Jamaican, I think everyone can relate to the migration in search of a better life thing, and for me it was interesting reading about that experience because most of the family members I know who’ve migrated went to the United States. Growing up in the 90s and 2000s in a post-independent Jamaica, England just had (in my opinion) less of an influence and the US was where it was at. But for my parents and grandparent’s generation, living in colonial Jamaica, through independence and then early post-independent Jamaica, England would’ve still held a significant role and I know they had family who migrated there. That said, the book shows me what life might have been like for my grandparent’s relatives who did move to England.
The writing throughout the entire book is lovely, it just flows. You know when your spirit just takes to something? My spirit took to this book. It’s a great palate cleanser of a story, not too long, well-written and has, for me and many other Jamaicans, the familiarity of home. The memory of being scrubbed clean and dressed in your Sunday best to go to church, the smell of stew peas on the stove and comforting phrases from mummy like “where there’s life, there’s hope”. The entire book was like a hug from a Jamaican granny (if you had the hugging kind) and I honestly can’t wait to read more of her work.