Broken Gourds
 Beresford McLean
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 TFG Press
  ISBN: 0972001751
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Past & present clash in a Jamaican village when a new road threatens a sacred place.

Albion is a lush rural district in the parish of Saint Mary where descendants of ex-slaves live beside the progeny of former slaver masters & modern plantation owners. Change however is in the air: “Change once again flowed through the hilly villages of Albion. Like a mysterious zephyr, it was everywhere, touching everything with wild indulgence.” P 13.

There is a need to widen the ancient, dusty, rutted road that passes right through a place of great historical & holy significance in Albion, & therein lies the conflict. The road is wanted by those interested in the future. The sacred place has value only to the people of African ancestry.

The ministries of church & health clinic are run by holier-, healthier- & wealthier-than-thou white folks, seemingly compassionate, always patronizing, while the denizens of Albion work in the fields & enjoy & respect the traditions & rituals of their past.

The team from the nearest town, who must survey & decide what land the road will destroy is being rushed by the imminent August the First national holiday, a week long celebration of the island's freedom from slavery, during which no work will be done. The road must be completed before the rainy season just 40 odd working days away.

& so the stories must be told in & of the bright & shining hallowed ground & the team of city surveyors & bureaucrats must linger to listen.

It is the collective memories of a lowly & defective son of African parentage who became empowered with the gift of healing, which, obviously, the Christians were not a bit keen about. How Dada became both healed & healer is a story of wonder, humiliation & redemption.

Broken Gourds is a story that empowers the oppressed & fosters harmony & hope; a tale of change & permanence, hate & love, pestilence & peace. Quite simply, a tale about life in a multi-ethnic community a century ago & in the present.

Broken Gourds is also lyrically written in a language that dances & darts, creating images & memories which, like the city folks who had to stop & hear the story, make the reader stop & linger, fascinated by the telling.

Exquisitely done! Memorable!

Beresford McLean knows of what he has written, born in rural Jamaica, he later lived in Kingston, where he completed & subsequently taught high school. In 1970 he emigrated to the United States where he gained a graduate degree in physics & worked as an engineer for 20 years in Texas & California. He is married with children & is now retired & writing.
(04/20/03)

Rebecca