Dry Bone Memories

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

With this powerful novel, Cecil Foster, an award-winning author of
fiction and nonfiction, cements his reputation as a major contemporary
Canadian novelist. As he leaves his native island (Barbados) for a new
life in the United States, the narrator, Edmond, relates the story of
Jeffery Spencer who abandoned a shadowy career in Canada to seek his
fortune in Barbados. Jeffery achieves power and profit through crooked
business and political deals. He has the prime minister in his pocket,
becomes chairman of the national airline, and colludes with Colombian
drug barons to build banks, hotels, and clubs on the island. The
complicated, twist-filled plot features everything from Barbadian
customs to the evils of U.S. and Colombian intervention. Edmund’s
preacher-father and Jeffery’s gravedigger-father, as well as his
murdered teacher-wife and Colombian mistress, are among the novel’s
many fascinating secondary characters.