Villa Fair

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

The 12 stories and novella that make up this multifaceted collection are
rooted in the author’s Jamaican past and Canadian present. In the
darkly humorous “Ackee Night in Canada,” the artist-narrator feeds
her Scottish boyfriend poisoned food. Other stories relate the cold
reality of a Toronto winter for a young African immigrant, the
competition between two Jamaican store-owners for the attentions of a
young Canadian student in Toronto, and the frustrations of a
Canadian-born Indian girl who forced into an arranged marriage.

Most effective are the stories set in Jamaica. In “Man-man,” a
ghost-child who drowned in 1806 haunts a plantation. In “Close the
Blue Door,” the young narrator tells the story of her mother, who was
allegedly seduced by the merman of East Indian legends. In the title
story, the home of the Belmonts on August Island is the tragic setting
for a death in the family. Another Jamaican family is the focus of the
collection’s most substantial story, “Roberta on the Beach”; full
of myths and legends, this story displays a touch of magical realism
worthy of Garcнa Mбrquez.