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| SINGERMAN BY HAZEL D. CAMPBELL From the blurb: A collection of 9 short stories on life in Jamaica portraying some of the preoccupations of our people with race, class and poverty - issues that no serious writer in the Caribbean can avoid. In bright robust prose the writer explores these disturbing issues in a range of styles sometimes comic but at other times darkly sombre. In the title story 'Singerman' inspired by David Rudder's calypso 'Haiti', with a "mixture of tale, prose poem and story effects," the author shows how that island was wronged and how, exotically and mindlessly now we continue that wrong against ourselves- that is the entire Caribbean. The author's moral concerns are evident throughout these stories, which, despite the often negative situations of the mainly early 90's Caribbean setting, show the capacity of Caribbean people to rise out of enslavements- old and new. The collection is well worth a read. Available from: [email protected] or www.amazon.co.uk. Published by: Peepal Tree Press 17 Kings Ave Leeds LS6 1QS Yorkshire England ****************** |
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ABOUT THE STORIES Realistic and magical, sombre and deeply comic, heroic and full of ironies, these stories explore the complexities of Caribbean reality through a variety of voices and forms. In 'Jacob Bubbles', a short novella, Campbell connects the contemporary Jamaica of political gang warfare to the past of slavery through the characters of Jacob, a runaway slave and his descendant, Jacob Bubbles, the fearsome leader of the Suckdust Posse. When Jacob Bubbles meets a violent death, a memory path opens in his head which carries him back to his slave ancestor. The contrast between the two stories raises uncomfortable questions about what progress there has been for the most oppressed sections of Jamaican society. Yet if there is in these stories an acute perception of the ways in which poverty, racism and sexism can maim the spirit, there is an overarching vision of the redemptive power of hope and love and the people's capacity to rise out of enslavements old and new. In bringing us, amongst others, Singerman, the Calypsonian, Quincey, the business man who turns into a bird, Jocelyn who cannot tell a lie and the inseperable Mr Fargo and Mr Lawson, Hazel Campbell shows herself to be one of the Caribbean's finest writers of short fiction. . |
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| Two earlier collections of stories The Rag Doll and Woman's Tongue are currently out of print |
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| Extract from 'CARNIVAL' one of the stories in SINGERMAN by Hazel D. Campbell In the morning he awakened in his friend's beach cottage to the sound of clinking pots and the teasing smell of coffee. He wasn't surprised to see the ugly receptionist waddling into the room carrying two steaming mugs. 'Are you all right?' she asked. He nodded. 'Why did you wait so long? Didn't you see the acacia blooming?' He didn't answer. He was trying to get used to the look of her; the dumpy body, the too large lips; protruding teeth, the flat outsize nose. Oh God! She's ugly, he couldn't help the thought. 'Are you the birdwoman?' 'You know I am.' 'How did you find out about me?' 'Let's say a little bird told me.' She smiled. 'The distance between the islands is not great. You can fly from one to the other in less than an hour sometimes. I like to fly. It's like magic soaring above everything; free from land, free from people.' 'What's your name?' 'If you were asked to give me a name, what would it be? What would you call me?' He wished she would continue talking. He couldn't hear enough of that lovely voice. To shut his eyes and listen to her was, he imagined, like listening to an angel. 'Angella.' 'That's a nice name. It will do.. May I stay here until it's over?' 'Why not?' 'This is the last time, you know.' 'What do you mean?' he asked in great alarm. Would he now be bird forever?' 'Don't you know?' she asked, looking at him in surprise. He shook his head. 'Didn't they tell you when they granted your wish?' 'No!' he said. He was getting increasingly frightened. 'When the acacia blooms for the seventh time plus three...' she chanted. 'The third time you have to decide whether to stay bird or return to human form forever.' 'Human for me!' he cried with relief. Her face showed great sadness. 'Don't tell me you're thinking of choosing to be a bird forever?' 'If you were me, what would you choose?' He hesitated because he wasn't sure what she meant. 'It's okay,' she stopped him from answering. 'Don't feel badly. I'm a telephone operator and sometimes I fill in at the hotel where you met me - the deep night shift, where I won't be seen. Too many times I've heard men eager to meet the woman with the heavenly voice. Too many times I've seen the disbelief and disappointment in their eyes when they did meet me. Angels should be pale-skinned with long flowing hair, and beautiful, not so? I have learned that it is better to stay hidden.' She was trying to hide her bitterness but it showed in her face. 'When I was little, they put me in the church choir because my voice was so beautiful, but they used to hide me behind the taller children. One Sunday I decided that I had had enough of being hidden so when it came to the solo part I stepped out so that everyone could see who was singing. The church was packed. It was a special service. There were many visitors. Lots of children.' She sighed. 'I'll never forget that song. The choir sang the chorus - Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world- You know it?' She got up and went to the window, and with her back to him as if she didn't want to be seen she sang the chorus. Quincey was spellbound. Her voice made him think of the smooth sweetness of his favourite icecream; he thought of banks of fluffy white clouds; of the gentle murmur of a peaceful stream; of the sparkle of a shower of stars; and he thought that if he had ever really imagined an angel singing, that was how it would be. 'I had the first verse, something about how I was lame and He healed me,' She took a sip of coffee and continued as if he was no longer there, just she and the choir and the congregation giggling at the incongruity of such an ugly girl with such a beautiful voice. 'My mother, my own mother was so mortified at the laughter. I believe that if she could have disowned me she would have done so. She actually scolded me for showing myself. That was the first time I realised how unacceptable my ugliness was. That was the first time I wished to escape; to become a bird and fly away from the misery I was feeling. He nodded in sympathy. He was remembering the feelings of inadequacy which had caused him to make a similar wish. 'I don't want to live with this ugliness which everybody despises. Having a beautiful voice makes it worse. People look at me in disgust as if they're saying - What a waste of a good thing! So, If you were me , what would you choose?'..... |
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| Caribbean Short Stories by Hazel D. Campbell |
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SINGERMAN (extract) Once there was a black Starliner, a floating ship in the Caribbean Sea to which history gave power long before anybody in western seas would think that power could be black. The Starliner sailed proudly, flying its black flag. But it had to make its way in a hostile white-foamed sea. Its course was a lonely one and its isolated existence helped to breed excesses among certain of its officers. Successive captains lost their way in the uncharted waters of the Caribbean. From time to time the crew mutinied. Once or twice pirates plundered the Starliner, and as the years passed the ship grew shabbier and shabbier, and the crew got poorer and poorer. . Nothing, not even the the proud memory of the ancient black moorings from which it had been so crudely cut off; not even the beauty of the ancestral art; not even the mixed-up memory worship of the gods of the forefathers could save them from the storms which the sea god put in their path year after year after year. One day, after a long spell of foul weather,the crew mutinied again,and the baby-faced captain was forced to abandon ship. As the ship seemed to be floundering , once again on the brink of disaster, other ships surrounded it and threw leaky rafts and bad rations to the crew. "Steer this way," some of the onlookers shouted. "No! That way," others directed. Some only looked on, because they thought they had no right to interfere in the ancient Starliner's business. But some modern day pirates watched in the hope that,although it was only a very poor ship flying a black flag, perhaps, just perhaps, there might be booty. Haiti, I'm sorry, We've misunderstood you, One day we'll turn our heads And look inside you ......... (chorus from Haiti by David Rudder 1987) |
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| Also available from Amazon.com |
| Say you saw it on shandycan's website |
| Say you saw it on shandycan's website |
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