Maureen St. Clair

Big Island, Small centres on a relationship—sometimes fractious, sometimes affectionate—between two young women, Judith and Sola. Both are from “Small Island” in the Caribbean and living on “Big Island,” which we are invited to believe is North America. Judith, light-skinned with dreadlocks and exuding a truculent air of confidence, and Sola, dark-skinned, observant, vulnerable, meet at a reggae concert and are immediately attracted to one another. Impulsively, they decide to meet again later, an encounter that turns physical and impassioned. From this beginning we watch as, while dealing with complex national, racial and gender identities while at the same time simply trying to get on with their lives, Judith and Sola, often in desperation, pull each other close and push each other away. Both have previous and ongoing relationships with other people, other lovers, and this leads to jealousy and conflict. Both are haunted by ghosts from the past, both have complicated family situations. At earlier stages of their young lives both have behaved in ways, and made decisions, that they regret but don’t fully understand, and certainly don’t want to discuss. Moreover, Judith and Sola are inquisitive individuals, particularly with regard to each other: they push and probe, but a common reluctance to address the past often threatens to drive them apart. Judith has a bit of a chip on her shoulder, borne of her mixed-race heritage—she doesn’t like to be told what to do or whom she should spend her time with—and as the story unfolds we also see a self-destructive streak emerge. Finally, after a period of estrangement, a crisis brings them together once again, old wounds begin to heal, nagging family secrets are dragged into the light. In Big Island, Small Maureen St. Clair has written a taut and compelling drama about two fascinating women. The novel is narrated by Judith and Sola, in alternating chapters and in their distinctive voices. A weakness of the book is the geographic vagueness of the setting, which grants the author latitude to invent freely, without having to tie events to a specific locale, but is also a distraction. As well, Judith and Sola’s push-pull relationship—their occasional impulsive and even antagonistic behaviour toward one another—sometimes goes over the top. A quiet conversation veers into private territory, one of them takes offense, hurtful things are said: it’s a pattern with which the reader becomes very familiar, enough so that we begin to wish the two would just grow up already and appreciate what they have in each other. Still, we care deeply about the two protagonists, and undeniably the novel is engaging on multiple levels. It also tackles questions of social, gender and racial identity in provocative fashion. Deserving winner of the 2016 Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature.… (altro)