A new nov­el by Earl Lovelace, now in his mid-70s and a ma­jor Caribbean lit­er­ary fig­ure, is some­thing of an event. And he's kept his fans wait­ing a long time: his Com­mon­wealth prize-win­ning Salt was pub­lished 15 years ago. Lovelace is un­usu­al among cel­e­brat­ed Caribbean writ­ers in that he has al­ways lived in Trinidad. Most writ­ers leave to find sup­port for their lit­er­ary en­deav­ours else­where and this, ar­guably, shapes the lit­er­a­ture, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter long pe­ri­ods of ex­ile. But Lovelace's fic­tion is deeply em­bed­ded in Trinida­di­an so­ci­ety and is writ­ten from the per­spec­tive of one whose ties to his home­land have nev­er been bro­ken. In his new nov­el, he turns his at­ten­tion to the re­mote fic­tion­al vil­lage of Cas­cadu and the lives of or­di­nary in­di­vid­u­als whose re­la­tion­ship to pol­i­tics, their peers and their own weak­ness­es pro­vide fas­ci­nat­ing ma­te­r­i­al.

Be­gin­ning in the 1970s and span­ning some 20 years, the nov­el weaves to­geth­er mul­ti­ple char­ac­ters and nar­ra­tives against the back­drop of a post-in­de­pen­dence so­ci­ety where po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are self-serv­ing and the vil­lagers are voice­less, of­ten self-de­feat­ing. The nar­ra­tor, Kangkala, is a singer and po­et whose nar­ra­tive voice slips in and out of the ex­tem­pore style of ca­lyp­so, cre­at­ing a breath­less stream of con­scious­ness. The nov­el's open­ing lines set up his mis­chie­vous role: "My name is Kangkala, mak­er of con­fu­sion, recorder of gos­sip, de­stroy­er of rep­u­ta­tions, re­veal­er of se­crets...I re­duce the pow­er­ful by ridicule. I show them their ab­sur­di­ties by par­o­dy." The mo­tif of ca­lyp­so, with its his­to­ry of so­cial com­men­tary, protest and praise, is sewn in­to the nov­el as Kangkala turns his in­sight­ful, be­mused eye on the in­hab­i­tants of the vil­lage.

The young Son­ny­boy ap­pears ini­tial­ly to be the pro­tag­o­nist, al­though as the nov­el pro­gress­es oth­er char­ac­ters jos­tle for space and his sto­ry is con­signed to the side­lines. Aban­doned by both par­ents, he is sullen and re­sent­ful and be­comes a rob­ber, gam­bler, fight­er and all-round "bad­john." A turn­ing point comes when he finds an out­let for his anger in lo­cal pol­i­tics, en­coun­ters the Black Pow­er Move­ment and stops hus­tling. Oth­er char­ac­ters al­so un­der­go rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions. Dor­lene Cruick­shank en­ters the nov­el as a cool, beau­ti­ful li­brar­i­an for whom no man is good enough (raised by a fa­ther with delu­sions of grandeur be­cause they had a pi­ano in the house), and she ends up, af­ter a near-miss with death, a renowned heal­er to whom peo­ple flock. Man­ick, an In­do-Trinida­di­an, who in the 70s be­lieved in the strug­gle to em­pow­er Afro-Trinida­di­ans, ends up an as­pir­ing politi­cian aban­don­ing his val­ues for va­pid plat­i­tudes. The nov­el dips in­to the lives of nu­mer­ous oth­er char­ac­ters, a feat achieved us­ing more sum­ma­ry than scene.

Lovelace's ever-present hu­mour is im­bued with a great sense of the ab­surd. Son­ny­boy joins the "in­tel­lec­tu­al" Hard Wuck Par­ty that has hith­er­to been fail­ing to gar­ner sup­port. This is not sur­pris­ing when we learn that its so­lu­tion to the na­tion's prob­lems is to get peo­ple to be­lieve in them­selves and to learn the names of all the dif­fer­ent species of the na­tion's wildlife. In this small, rur­al com­mu­ni­ty where no one reads, the par­ty's ide­ol­o­gy be­gins to gain cur­ren­cy. As the par­ty's new rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Cas­cadu, Son­ny­boy, now af­ford­ed the sta­tus he craves, ap­pears in the lo­cal news­pa­per with his own brand of po­lit­i­cal apho­risms: "The voice of the peo­ple is the voice of God...Right­eous­ness shall pre­vail...Who don't want to hear will feel ..Mon­key does al­ways climb the right tree."

Pol­i­tics is fil­tered through those who are self-re­gard­ing, pow­er-seek­ing or sus­cep­ti­ble to per­sua­sive speak­ers and easy so­lu­tions. The gov­ern­ment is in­ef­fec­tu­al, the po­lice its vi­o­lent in­stru­ment for sup­press­ing sedi­tion-re­al or imag­ined. When Clay­ton Blondell, an ar­ro­gant pan-African­ist pros­e­ly­tis­er, de­rides Trinida­di­an cul­ture and gains a fol­low­ing in the vil­lage, the nar­ra­tor, with char­ac­ter­is­tic per­cep­tive­ness, ques­tions why. "Think­ing lat­er about what made him an ar­rest­ing fig­ure, I con­clud­ed that it was not on­ly be­cause he did not al­low any­one to speak, not cer­tain­ly be­cause we be­lieved in the sim­plic­i­ty of his ac­cu­sa­tions, but be­cause we had noth­ing to say, or, rather, we had been say­ing noth­ing. Clay­ton was fill­ing a space."

Lovelace is burst­ing with things to say about this com­plex, het­ero­ge­neous so­ci­ety in the late 20th cen­tu­ry. This he does with a flair that at its best reach­es a soar­ing rhap­sody. The scabs of racial ten­sion are cau­tious­ly peeled back and we wit­ness the com­mu­ni­ty's loves, as­pi­ra­tions and machi­na­tions; their lit­tle vic­to­ries and de­feats, their best selves and worst selves. And when things be­come too dif­fi­cult, there is al­ways the spir­it of car­ni­val that pre­sides over their lives: re­cu­per­a­tive, cathar­tic, com­mu­nal, cel­e­bra­to­ry. -Berna­dine Evaris­to, who re­views the book for Lon­don's Guardian

Lovelace's ever-present hu­mour is im­bued with a great sense of the ab­surd. Son­ny­boy joins the 'in­tel­lec­tu­al' Hard Wuck Par­ty that has hith­er­to been fail­ing to gar­ner sup­port. This is not sur­pris­ing when we learn that its so­lu­tion to the na­tion's prob­lems is to get peo­ple to be­lieve in them­selves and to learn the names of all the dif­fer­ent species of the na­tion's wildlife. In this small, rur­al com­mu­ni­ty where no one reads, the par­ty's ide­ol­o­gy be­gins to gain cur­ren­cy. As the par­ty's new rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Cas­cadu, Son­ny­boy, now af­ford­ed the sta­tus he craves, ap­pears in the lo­cal news­pa­per with his own brand of po­lit­i­cal apho­risms: 'The voice of the peo­ple is the voice of God...'