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Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement
When a group of graduating students is caught vandalizing an exclusive Guyanese club, their punishment is to write a short story about the newly independent Guyana. Years later, as a tribute to the life of one of the former classmates now feared dead, the author has collected the rest of the stories written by his classmates. The group of stories works like Chaucerian tales to slowly reveal their teller as well as to chart the history and future of Guyanese fiction.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
220 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 5, 2022
I came across this book browsing on the web and saw that it had won a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2007, in the Canada/Caribbean section. The author’s home country is Guyana. I was surprised that the book seemed to have so few ratings and reviews on GR, but then found that the paperback version is listed separately under the title Suspended Sentences: Fictions of Atonement (at the time I’m writing this even that version has just 33 ratings and 1 review).
This is a short story collection where the stories are supposedly written by different authors, though they’re not. Mark McWatt seems to have published more poetry than prose, and his love of poetry comes through in these stories. Catholicism and spirituality feature a lot as well. Most of the stories have an upbeat ending, but some don’t, so I won’t say which are which!
The set-up is a little contrived. In 1966, a group of senior school pupils go out to celebrate the end of their exams, and Guyana’s independence a month before. They end up vandalising the venue they hired and as “atonement” each must write a story “for and about Guyana” although some take decades to complete the task. The term “for Guyana” is important. I think there are probably references that escape the non-Guyanese reader. I found the collection a very mixed bag.
It opens with two stories with supernatural themes. I was quite enjoying the first, Uncle Umberto’s Slippers, but when the story ended was left thinking “Was that it?” The second, Two Boys Named Basil, features two teenagers who compete fiercely with one another, but who seem to have a strange connection.
The next story, Sky, was for me one of the strongest in the collection. A middle-aged man returns to Guyana for a visit after several decades of living in London. He bumps into an old schoolfriend, Robbie, who suggests they take a hiking and camping trip into the country’s interior. Things go well for the first few days, but then take an unexpected turn.
Afternoon without Tears is a strange story of visions, in which the past merges with the present. One of the later stories, The Tyranny of Influence, is another oneiric tale, full of visions of Catholic and (I presume) Amerindian spirituality. I found it difficult to relate to these.
Story five in the collection is Alma Fordyce and the Bakoo. I wasn’t familiar with the word “Bakoo” but the Internet suggests it is a type of spirit similar to a sprite or a goblin. Buried in this story is a dark tale of sexual obsession, but I thought the story itself was one of the silliest I have read in years. Unfortunately, that feeling continued in The Visitor, in which a man is transported into the future. I have nothing against the idea of time travel in fiction, but the story didn’t deliver. The author seemed to have some sort of wish fulfilment thing going on in this one.
At this point I was considering giving up on the book, but the next story, Bougainvilla and Body Parts, was for me a big improvement. A man travels to Toronto, where his daughter, a student, is having some personal problems. I found this a touching tale about the bonds of family. It’s followed by A Lovesong for Miss Lillian, in which a 31-year-old man develops an obsession with a fifty-something woman who was once in love with his father. It’s not bad, but I wondered what Freud would have made of it! The Bats of Love is another strong entry in the collection, in which a well-intentioned but thoughtless act has long-term consequences. The collection finishes with The Celebration, a description of the long-ago event that caused all the trouble, and a retrospective look at Guyana since independence.
My individual ratings averaged out at 2.7, but some of the stories in here deserve to be better known.
This is a short story collection where the stories are supposedly written by different authors, though they’re not. Mark McWatt seems to have published more poetry than prose, and his love of poetry comes through in these stories. Catholicism and spirituality feature a lot as well. Most of the stories have an upbeat ending, but some don’t, so I won’t say which are which!
The set-up is a little contrived. In 1966, a group of senior school pupils go out to celebrate the end of their exams, and Guyana’s independence a month before. They end up vandalising the venue they hired and as “atonement” each must write a story “for and about Guyana” although some take decades to complete the task. The term “for Guyana” is important. I think there are probably references that escape the non-Guyanese reader. I found the collection a very mixed bag.
It opens with two stories with supernatural themes. I was quite enjoying the first, Uncle Umberto’s Slippers, but when the story ended was left thinking “Was that it?” The second, Two Boys Named Basil, features two teenagers who compete fiercely with one another, but who seem to have a strange connection.
The next story, Sky, was for me one of the strongest in the collection. A middle-aged man returns to Guyana for a visit after several decades of living in London. He bumps into an old schoolfriend, Robbie, who suggests they take a hiking and camping trip into the country’s interior. Things go well for the first few days, but then take an unexpected turn.
Afternoon without Tears is a strange story of visions, in which the past merges with the present. One of the later stories, The Tyranny of Influence, is another oneiric tale, full of visions of Catholic and (I presume) Amerindian spirituality. I found it difficult to relate to these.
Story five in the collection is Alma Fordyce and the Bakoo. I wasn’t familiar with the word “Bakoo” but the Internet suggests it is a type of spirit similar to a sprite or a goblin. Buried in this story is a dark tale of sexual obsession, but I thought the story itself was one of the silliest I have read in years. Unfortunately, that feeling continued in The Visitor, in which a man is transported into the future. I have nothing against the idea of time travel in fiction, but the story didn’t deliver. The author seemed to have some sort of wish fulfilment thing going on in this one.
At this point I was considering giving up on the book, but the next story, Bougainvilla and Body Parts, was for me a big improvement. A man travels to Toronto, where his daughter, a student, is having some personal problems. I found this a touching tale about the bonds of family. It’s followed by A Lovesong for Miss Lillian, in which a 31-year-old man develops an obsession with a fifty-something woman who was once in love with his father. It’s not bad, but I wondered what Freud would have made of it! The Bats of Love is another strong entry in the collection, in which a well-intentioned but thoughtless act has long-term consequences. The collection finishes with The Celebration, a description of the long-ago event that caused all the trouble, and a retrospective look at Guyana since independence.
My individual ratings averaged out at 2.7, but some of the stories in here deserve to be better known.
December 27, 2013
This novel was amazing. I don't usually like short stories but these short stories were so diverse and so real but yet still very connected. I loved it. Looking forward to anything new by this author.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews