Slammin' Tar

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Who could want a more boring assignment? They can say whatever they
want, but I believe they are still punishing me, testing the limits of
my endurance. For I’ll live and die by the teachings of the Prophet, a
brilliant man who would have looked Mother Nyame straight in the face
and said nuts to this idea of integration. How I wish I had his strength
and vision.”

So says Brer Anancy, Spider God-at-Large and designated supernatural
witness to the life of Johnny Franklin, a migrant farm hand. For 25
years, Anancy has been stowing away in Franklin’s duffle bag as he and
his team forsake their homes and families in the Barbados to labor 10
months of the year on a remote Canadian tobacco farm. It is Brer
Anancy’s job to record and report Johnny’s every thought and
movement. Although there is much to admire in Johnny Franklin, the
Spider God cannot help but compare this lowly farm hand unfavorably with
his previous subject, the great black nationalist Marcus Garvey. This
year, two new developments have added to Brer Anancy’s resentment. A
rookie farm hand named Winston is challenging Johnny’s leadership in
the bunkhouse; worse still, Winston has brought his own spider-witness,
who threatens to knock Anancy off even this bottom rung of the
storytellers’ hierarchy.

Slammin’ Tar takes its title from a Bajan expression for running,
which is exactly what readers must do the moment they open the book.
Foster’s storyline hits the ground running, and anyone who wants to
keep up had better be prepared to match the pace. Plots revolve within
plots and subplots. The storyline is actually four-dimensional, moving
back and forth in time as well as spanning three continents. Johnny and
his fellow tobacco pickers are isolated and yet also part of the greater
story of the African diaspora. Although the reader need not know
anything about either Marcus Garvey or the African Spider God folk
traditions to follow the basic narrative, much of Brer Anancy’s humor
and insight may fall flat in the absence of such background information.
This novel is a great read, but not a light one.