Remembering G and Other Stories

J.M. Perreault is an assistant professor of English at the University of
Calgary and the co-editor of Native Women of Western Canada: Writing the
Circle: An Anthology.

Silvera, a feminist and anti-racism activist, is known for her oral
interviews with Caribbean domestic workers in Silenced; her edition of
poetry by lesbians of color, A Piece of My Heart; her work with
Fireweed; and her cofounding of Sister Vision Press. These 11 stories
about girlhood in Jamaica show another side of Silvera and elucidate a
highly textured community.

The volume contains a glossary that courteously provides definitions
for terms that may be unfamiliar to those who do not share a Jamaican
background. The stories take the shape of vignettes, episodes that
together shape the narrator’s childhood relationships with her outside
father, her proud and unpredictable mother, friends, relatives, and, of
course, G of the title story.

In the varied voices of local vernacular, and the cooler speech of
narrative, Silvera recalls crises of sexual maturation, discovery of
death, duppies, and racism, and very softly tells of the first sweet
kiss with her best girlfriend. G is the kind man who woos her mother
with his genius for making beautiful things with wood. He tells her
stories, buys her ribbons, and incurs her mother’s wrath by keeping
the child with him as he visits one too many pubs.

While the individual stories are not perfectly even in quality, this
collection as a whole is a strong, unsentimental, funny, and tough
picture of girlhood in a complex community.