The Pirate's Daughter - Margaret Cezair-Thompson

A novel documenting the tensions of race, class, sexuality, and gender in a changing Jamaica, The Pirate's Daughter is an epic novel about the pain of love and family relationships.

Spanning 30 years, the novel tells the tale of Ida Joseph, a teenager entranced by the presence of Hollywood actor Error Flynn in her home country. Beautiful, passionate and wilful, Ida finds herself in love with Flynn and, after a brief love affair, has his child, May.

The novel documents Ida's struggle to find her way in the world and to let go of Flynn, doing her best to provide for her daughter. The focus then switches to May, a deep, intelligent and lonely child, who in turn fights to find her place and to fall in love with the right person.

Epic, atmospheric and evocative, The Pirate's Daughter uses Jamaica's changing political climate as the backdrop for a winding saga probing the complexities of families and love. With her parents unmarried and from different ethnic backgrounds, Ida is uncomfortable with her place in the world. Unable to relate to her traditional Jamaican mother, she finds herself turning to her father Eli for comfort and to be understood. As she nears womanhood, she increasingly turns to Flynn before they become lovers when she is 16.

In the novel, Flynn personifies colonialism with mere presence and his relationship with Ida. He is blown onto the island in a storm. While there, he buys his own island, transforms it and makes it known as a paradise to his friends and fellow celebrities. He arrives, buys, transforms and conquers. In his relationship with Ida, he decides she is beautiful and starts a brief love affair, one which cools after it is consummated and when May has his unborn child. She is cast aside like an unwanted toy. Her pleas for help and her love for him go unacknowledged evermore.

Her daughter May is later even more uncertain of where she fits in. She is a mixed race child, the daughter of a Hollywood legend. Her peers brand her a "white witch" while her fiance Martin later jilts her for being "coloured" and illegitimate. Like her mother, she uses sex to try to validate herself. May works her way through a multitude of lovers and one night stands before finally finding love and happiness.

Beautifully weaving fact and fiction against Jamaica's changing political landscape, The Pirate's Daughter is an unusual read, which has the echoes of Wide Sargasso Sea. Poetic and perfectly plotted, it is a dark, sad and desolate read which shows just how unwavering love can be, even if it is unrequited and built on fantasy.

My next read: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton