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Ian Thomson The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica. New York: Nation Books, 2011. xviii + 370 pp. (Paper US$16.99)
The Dead Yard is the 2010 winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize as well as the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. In spite of these accolades in Britain, the book had caused quite a stir in Jamaica. Thomson's damaging depiction of the island ired many. Indeed, as he writes in the preface to the u.s. edition, "The Dead Yard exposes a dark side of island life at odds with the 'paradise' island of travel brochures." It was not surprising then, that the promotional announcement for the book's first publication in The Independent uk was entitled "Sun, Sand and Savagery: What Ever Happened to Jamaica, Paradise Island?" Controversial books sell. It really is that simple.
In the introduction, "A History of Paradise," Thomson sets out to explore the island and answer what turns out to be a rhetorical question from an elderly white Jamaican woman who not only asks him whether we really need another book on Jamaica, but most poignantly adds, "You visitors are always getting it wrong. Either it's golden beaches or it's guns, guns, guns. Is there nothing in between?" (p. 1).
In the following 26 chapters and 349 pages, Thomson proceeds to confirm that indeed (at least from his perspective) there certainly is no "in between." Part history, part travelogue, he "goes [as] native" as he can on his jaunts as a lanky white Englishman combing through the mountainous landscape and coasts to conduct interviews with a slew of subjects who let him into their homes as he seeks to comprehend Jamaica. The majority of them are contacts from friends and colleagues in England. Others include notable figures in Jamaica's business and art communities as well as public intellectuals. He writes that his subjects,...