Author: Beresford McLean

ISBN:  0-9753297-1-5

The following review was contributed by: Sue Vogan: To read more of Sue's reviews Click Here

Afia's two-week marriage to Bem Covey was anything but normal. They had said their vows ; "Bem left the ceremonial hall and had not been seen since." From that day, Afia "had taken comfort from Esi, her best friend."

The women find themselves in a "smoke-filled tavern" just after Afia's favorite meal -- "dukunu, a spiced corn cake served with a steaming portion of the stewed spinach-like vegetable, callalou, and flavored sour-sop juice." Esi thought the outing to the "failed church" turned home turned tavern might bring Afia some reprieve, for a short while, from missing Bem. The disappearance was bizarre. Who would just disappear on their wedding night?

It would be four months before Bem reappeared. It would happen as baffling as his disappearance. Afia hears footsteps and she is sure that they belong to Bem. Without a word, he undresses and slips into bed -- the wedding bed. What should have been four months into the honeymoon was now their wedding night. Afia resists, but soon relents -- accepting him "first as a friend, then as a man, and finally as her husband, yet with mixed feelings of anxiety and joy at their first sexual union."

The next morning, Afia learns that Bem's father had him sent to the seminary. He would reveal to Afia his former life. Being the outcome of a union between an English landlord and an African peasant, who died shortly after giving birth, forced him into servitude. He was not permitted to live with the Covey family and at eighteen, he was sent to manage his father's abode in Providence. This "kept Bem's embarrassing presence from the family estate in Free Hill."

Afia had news for her husband, too. While he was away at the seminary, Vijay, who wanted Afia for his own wife, had raped and impregnated her. For this act, Bem wanted him to confess and be thrown into jail. The prison was not what we imagine confinement to be. Instead, it was a leftover from slavery where one would wait without food or visitors until a family member paid the restitution for the crime. This is what Bem wanted for the man who had taken his wife's virginity and made her with child. If he couldn't force Vijay into a confession, Bem would force him into a fight and shoot him in self-defense.

The plan came to a head at the same smoke-filled tavern Afia and Esi had been to only months earlier. Bem pulled his revolver from its hiding place and backed Vijay down. What was soon uncovered was that Vijay also had a hidden weapon. But, the plot was interrupted by Asa -- a man that they had heard about from their ancestors. This man knew everyone's name and, so it seems, their secrets. Asa predicted that Esi would carry Vijay's child, even though they hated each other and that Afia would have a baby girl. He revealed that he was there to start a Family. A family like no other and they would be his stock. But, for now, he would leave them to tend to his Family in Portland. Even though Portland was a long way and modern transportation hadn't been invented, Asa vowed he would be in Portland before the group reached their nearby homes.

Afia asked Asa to prove what he was saying about this travel in the blink of an eye. Asa obliged, "suddenly the man standing before them seemed like a giant bird, and in a moment, he became a man again. He looked at them and smiled. Silence ruled."

"Little did the part know that indeed a new Kumina Family had been born at Providence Pond that day."

For forty years, Providence Pond undergoes struggles and growth. "Their communal lifestyle, centered in the African mores of Kumina wisdom, ripples through the fragmented village, causing joy, as well as fear and confusion." The Family searches for "full and open cultural expression in an intolerant British-dominated society." The Kumina leader faces difficult obstacles as he builds on the Family's all-encompassing, true concept -- love.

This novel is a well written love story entwined with "authentic" Jamaican legends and customs.