Synopses & Reviews
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. Taking along her younger sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But in a capital city awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. From a room in a boarding house and a job at a supply store, Gloria finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, intrigued by the glamorous, financially independent women within. It is an unlikely place to meet the love of your life, but here she encounters Pao, a Chinatown racketeer and a loyal customer who will become something more. It is also an unlikely place to gain a passion for social justice, but it is one of the house's proprietors who instills in Gloria new ideas about the rights of women and all humankind, eventually propelling her to Cuba, where even greater change is underway, and where Gloria must choose between the life she has made for herself and the one that might be.
Alive with the energy of a country at a crossroads, this is a story of love in many forms, and of Gloria's evolution — from a frightened girl on the run to a woman fully possessed of her own power.
Synopsis
Finalist in Fiction for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. Taking along her younger sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But in a capital city awash with change, a black woman is still treated as a second-class citizen. From a room in a boarding house and a job at a supply store, Gloria finds her way to a house of ill repute on the edge of the city, intrigued by the glamorous, financially independent women within.It is an unlikely place to meet the love of your life, but here she encounters Pao, a Chinatown racketeer and a loyal customer who will become something more. It is also an unlikely place to gain a passion for social justice, but it is one of the house's proprietors who instills in Gloria new ideas about the rights of women and all humankind, eventually propelling her to Cuba, where even greater change is underway, and where Gloria must choose between the life she has made for herself and the one that might be.
Alive with the energy of a country at a crossroads, this is a story of love in many forms, and of Gloria's evolution-from a frightened girl on the run to a woman fully possessed of her own power.
Synopsis
Jamaica, 1938. Gloria Campbell is sixteen years old when a single violent act alters the course of her life forever. Taking along her little sister, she flees their hometown to forge a new life in Kingston. But the capital city, too, convulses with change: mass protests and brutal arrests mark the arrival of a new Jamaica. But this is still a country where blacks are treated as second-class citizens, and although Gloria is determined to reinvent herself, she has difficulty making her way.
Eventually, recognized for her striking beauty, Gloria finds herself at a house of ill-repute on the edge of the city, with the madames Sybil and Beryl. It is in this unlikely place that she receives an education in — and passion for — social justice. And then, one hot Jamaican day, she meets Pao, a Chinese Kingston racketeer, and his destiny becomes bound with her own.
Moving, illuminating and alive with the energy of a country at a crossroads, Gloria is an irresistible tale of love in a time of tumult.
Synopsis
A vivid and powerful new novel of Jamaica, from the author of the Pao.
About the Author
Kerry Young was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Chinese father and a mother of mixed Chinese-African heritage, and moved to England at the age of ten. Kerry's early life with her father, a businessman who operated within Kingston's shadow economy, provided the inspiration for Pao, her first novel, and Gloria, her second novel, revisits many of the same characters. She lives in Leicestershire, England. www.kerryyoung.co.uk