A long succession of gags about Africanised London place names – gags which are not particularly funny (such as Mayfah, Paddinto, Golda’s Green, Brixtane and, settled by Chinese seamen, To Ten Ha Ma) but which ultimately pay off with a geological reference to the Essex massif – clashes with a growing certainty that this Londolo is not in the country called England. It flickers between an alternate history and (race) role-reversal satire, each seeming to conflict with the other. It takes a while to get your head around the generic cues and fictional world of this comical and fantastical neo-slave narrative. Conferences, keynotes, research presentations, plenaries and papers.The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Join 1,392 other subscribers Follow Mark Bould on Publications

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It's called 'To Catch the Lightning.'Ĭopyright © 2009 NPR. NORRIS: That's Alan Cheuse reviewing the new novel 'Blonde Roots' by Bernardine Evaristo. Evaristo works very close to farce, but none of what she does ever seems nonsensical. A lot of that fun rubs off on the reader. And she wields language and messes with history and geography with the gusto of someone having a great time with a great subject. Evaristo's themes are important, slavery at its root. In this part of the world, you try to escape and get caught, and you lose your foot.ĭoris's flight, her re-enslavement, and her ultimate struggle to be free move along with the liveliness of a B movie. 'Dear reader,' he states, 'suffice to say that running a slaver meant having to be responsible for the welfare of the cargo rather as a parent for its children.' In the New World, off the coast of America in the colonies of the west Japanese islands, Doris finds herself condemned to work in a dangerous sugarcane mill on an isolated plantation. While Doris suffers the middle passage, Evaristo enlightens us with an entertaining parody of a slave master's rationalizations of his inhumanity. She's recaptured and shipped to the New World. But this only lands her in deeper trouble. Her tale begins on a dark night when she, with the help of some abolitionist Aphrikans - that's spelled A-P-H-R-I-K-A-N - makes her escape from Londola(ph), the African capital of the UK of Great Ambosa(ph).

She's a house servant with a body worn by childbirth, but in whose heart the desire for freedom still burns. What if the slave trade had happened in reverse with African slave traders raiding Europe? British writer Bernardine Evaristo asked that question in her new novel, 'Blonde Roots.' Alan Cheuse has this review.ĪLAN CHEUSE: The main character is a woman named Doris Scagglethorpe.

Blonde roots book review