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THE AUTHOR OF SMALL ISLAND TELLS THE STORY OF THE LAST TURBULENT YEARS OF SLAVERY AND THE EARLY YEARS OF FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY JAMAICA

Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as "a triumph" ( San Francisco Chronicle ). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song , Levy once again reinvents the historical novel.

Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite."

Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her "freedom." It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her son's persistent questioning, July's resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love.

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Library Journal Review

Having survived the extremes of brutality and privilege, and now at an advanced age, the former slave named Miss July is compelled to share the story of her life. Her grown son, a well-educated gentleman and a printer by trade, frames the story as he gently informs the reader of Miss July's headstrong ways. Powerless throughout most of her life, Miss July now clearly enjoys the opportunity to embellish-and to edit-her story however she wishes. Born to a Jamaican field slave in the 1820s, she tells heart-wrenching tales from her years on the Amity sugar plantation. As for the British plantation owners, their tendencies toward folly and self-delusion pave the way for the slave revolt known as the Baptist Wars of 1831. Even the best-intentioned whites who come to the island to fight for abolition end up succumbing to the intense Jamaican heat and the madness of the constant struggle for power. Verdict As Levy proved in her Orange Prize-winning Small Island, her particular ability lies in giving voice to her characters. Her fifth novel is a stunning portrait of slavery and resilience that will stay with the reader long after the last page has been turned. Highly recommended for readers of historical fiction. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/10.]-Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

A distinctive narrative voice and a beguiling plot distinguish Levy's fifth novel (after Orange Prize-winning Small Island). A British writer of Jamaican descent, Levy draws upon history to recall the island's slave rebellion of 1832. The unreliable narrator pretends to be telling the story of a woman called July, born as the result of a rape of a field slave, but it soon becomes obvious that the narrator is July herself. Taken as a house slave when she's eight years old, July is later seduced by the pretentiously moralistic English overseer after he marries the plantation's mistress; his clergyman father has assured him that "a married man might do as he pleases." Related in July's lilting patois, the narrative encompasses scenes of shocking brutality and mass carnage, but also humor, sometimes verging on farce. Levy's satiric eye registers the venomous racism of the white characters and is equally candid in relating the degrees of social snobbery around skin color among the blacks themselves, July included. Slavery destroys the humanity of everyone is Levy's subtext, while the cliffhanger ending suggests (one hopes) a sequel. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

In the inexplicable absence of a definitive and revelatory history of Jamaica's nearly 300 years of slavery, Levy gamely steps into the void with the lively and engaging novel of Miss July, a slave born on the ironically named Amity sugar plantation. The mulatto child of a black slave and her white overseer, July's destiny was that of a canefield laborer until Caroline Mortimer took over the plantation upon the death of her brother. Renamed the more genteel Marguerite, July is promoted to the manor house, which brings her into contact with the new overseer, Robert Goodwin. More liberal than his lusty predecessors, Robert not only fails to abuse July, he also falls in love with her. Yet when the institution of slavery is abolished by royal decree, Goodwin's attempts to gainfully employ his former slaves end tragically for all concerned. Charming, alarming, Levy's vibrant historical novel shimmers with all the artifice and chicanery slave owners felt compelled to exert.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Andrea Levy was born in London, England in 1956 to Jamaican parents of mixed descent. She studied textile design and became a costume assistant. She took a creative-writing class and started writing in her 30s. Her first novel, Every Light in the House Burnin', was published in 1994. Her novels chronicled the experience of Jamaican immigrants in Britain. Her other works included Fruit of the Lemon, Six Stories and an Essay, and The Long Song. Small Island won the Orange Prize for fiction and the Whitbread Award for the book of the year. She died from cancer on February 14, 2019 at the age of 62.

(Bowker Author Biography)