She revels in taunting her readers with hints at an unreliable narration, but we never doubt the core of truth in her relations. She's a wonderful character - outspoken, blunt, clever, short-tempered, insolent and even bawdy at times, and she dominates the book. July, speaking to us as an old lady via her anxious, socially self-conscious son, treads her way through it all with ebullience. Even the 'good' white man, Robert Goodwin, shows a very unpleasant character when push comes to economic shove. And the pro-emancipation Baptist pastor is tarred and feathered by plantation owners. Rebels are burned out of their homes and hung. Sheets find their way onto dining tables in place of the Irish linen, and embarrass the hosts.īut of course, underneath it all runs the excruciating cruelty of slavery. Musicians caterwaul at dinner parties but play sublimely at slave gatherings afterwards. The slaves spend their days cheerfully subverting their owners by pretending stupidity. The white people are presented, by and large, as ludicrous, and none more ludicrous than July's mistress, Caroline Mortimer with her big-big batty and her talent for self-deception.

July's story is set in Jamaica just before and just after the emancipation of slaves and during the Baptist War. You might not see this as much of a setting for a comedy of manners, but this is what Andrea Levy gives us in The Long Song. Deprived of both parent and name - Caroline renames her Marguerite - July learns how to avoid her mistress's needle stick punishments and finds a place among the other house servants. Spotted by Caroline, the plantation owner's widowed sister on the side of the road, July is taken away from her mother to become a lady's maid. And Kitty doesn't keep hold of her daughter for very long. Nine months later, we find him striking the midwife who can't keep Kitty quiet during labour. July's tale, The Long Song, opens with her mother Kitty's rape by Amity plantation's overseer, Tam Dewar. Summary: Funny, captivating snapshot of Jamaica at the time of the Baptist Wars and as seen through the eyes of a mischievous, resilient, original woman you won't forget in a hurry.

The long song levy