Writings / Reviews: Candace Fertile

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Sweetheart
by Alecia McKenzie,
London, UK: Peepal Tree, 2011
134 pp. $16:95
 

Jamaican-born Alecia McKenzie won the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book with her debut collection of short stories, Satellite City. Her first novel, Sweetheart, works as a series of linked stories to draw a picture of Dulci, aka Cinea Verse, aka Sweetheart, a gifted artist who leaves Jamaica for New York.

The novel opens with the words of Dulci’s best friend, Cheryl, who has been tasked with job of taking half of Dulci’s ashes to scatter in New York. McKenzie uses the second person perspective wonderfully: the novel is comprised of twelve chapters with various characters who address Dulci directly and in doing so create a fuller picture than Cheryl could on her own. Cheryl’s voice is the main one, but the addition of other voices creates the rich complexity of Dulci—and of other characters, including Cheryl. The various narratives reveal all the characters, including dark secrets about some of them.

Dulci is an engaging character as seen through the eyes of her friends, family, and acquaintances. Never content with the conventional, Dulci gets kicked out of home by her father when an affair she is having with her boss ends in an attack by the man’s wife. Dulci moves into Cheryl’s dorm room and spends her time painting. Even though the novel functions as an elegy for Dulci, McKenzie manages to use humour from the first pages. When Cheryl is in the Jamaica airport, she drops the urn holding Dulci’s ashes and ends up scooping as much as she can into a makeshift container. As she says, “I wonder what the customs people are going to make of this Red Stripe Beer bottle now?”  The combination of tragedy and comedy makes the characters seem life-like; they have all kinds of experiences, both good and bad, and usually try to adopt a positive outlook. They work hard, in some cases just to survive, but in others to climb up in the world. Before the affair, Dulci has already antagonized her father by being useless in school, particularly math. She just doesn’t care about it.

The friendship between Cheryl and Dulci is explored with sensitivity, and it’s easy to see why the two became friends and stay friends even though they live far apart. Cheryl makes a point of visiting Dulci in New York as Dulci refuses to go back to Jamaica, still smarting from her father’s treatment. The two women help each other through relationships, and these are not without complications. One of the most moving chapters is Chapter Four, from the perspective of Dakota Beckett, the wife of the man Dulci has the affair with. No matter how angry people get with Dulci, especially Dakota and Dulci’s father, McKenzie shows everyone’s humanity. Mistakes are made, and that is simply human.

The centre of Sweetheart is a dead woman, but McKenzie has infused this lovely novel with such life and such passion that death recedes into the background and overall, the novel is a dazzling celebration of human connection.

Pages: 1 2 3

One Response to “Writings / Reviews: Candace Fertile”

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  1. Grace Armstrong Bryan says:

    Congratulations Alecia, job well done!!

    Keep writing…. you just never know….your next novel could very well turn into a movie!! You can do it so continue writing!

    Take care,
    Grace
    Alpharetta, Georgia, USA

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