![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Young’s commitment to exploring the lot of Jamaican women over three tumultuous decades is admirable, but the Moll Flanders-like brio of Gloria’s opening chapters fades over the course of nearly 400 pages. As its eponymous heroine attempts to shake off her discreditable past and forge a new identity for herself, so her struggles mirror Jamaica’s own - but Gloria’s personal battle is complicated by her feelings for racketeer Pao, a married man. Young was shortlisted for the Costa and Commonwealth Prizes for her debut novel, Pao, to which Gloria is a loose sequel. Gloria is determined to make an honest living, but her stunning beauty is a magnet for trouble and she soon follows Marcia into a house of ill repute. Narrator Gloria is just 16 when she beats to death the man responsible for abusing both her and her younger sister, Marcia, forcing them to flee their rural home for bustling Kingston. 'A hundred years ago they free the slave but they nuh free the woman.’ This is the truth at the heart of Kerry Young’s deeply-felt Jamaican-set novel which opens - in highly dramatic fashion - in 1938. ![]()
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