Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regretβAlexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.
In βLight-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,β an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In βMash Up Love,β a twinβs chance sighting of his estranged brotherβthe prodigal son of the familyβstirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In βBad Behavior,β a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In βMermaid River,β a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In βThe Ghost of Jia Yi,β a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in βShirley from a Small Place,β a world-famous pop star retreats to her motherβs big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.
Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fictionβs most dynamic and essential authors.
© 2003-2026