What do you think?
Rate this book
Black Faces, White Faces
A loosely connected sequence of stories, offering vignettes of human foibles from the holiday island of Jamaica. Mrs Filling sees something nasty in the midday sun; an English lawyer dallies while his wife goes mad in England; sexuality flares and everywhere farce and racial tension lurk.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
127 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1975
3 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
About the author
Jane Gardam
63 books552 followersJane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 25, 2016
Jane Gardam is always worth reading. While I didn't enjoy these short stories as much as, say, "Old Filth", that is more because I didn't become as engaged with the characters, even where they appeared in various stories, as I do with characters developed in a novel.
Her spare style is, as always, elegant.
Her spare style is, as always, elegant.
June 1, 2019
Book of interlinked short stories about the uber rich in Jamaica. The author is so good at her prtrayals. An interesting portrait too of a land where change is starting to happen.
March 22, 2019
So I really enjoyed the slim book. It isn't a fully 4 but it isn't an all 3 either. To be generous, I'm going with a 4.
We have a whole lot of characters in the 12 short stories who meet each other briefly though each story, in Jamaica. The prose is elegant and yet.. I felt there wasn't too much strength to it all.
We have a whole lot of characters in the 12 short stories who meet each other briefly though each story, in Jamaica. The prose is elegant and yet.. I felt there wasn't too much strength to it all.
January 15, 2023
One of the rare pleasures of happily trawling the local charity shops - aside from the friendly chats with new faces! - is discovering one of those boxes with "3 for £1" scrawled on the front before a line of yellowed & scuffed paperback books. I found one such 'lucky-dip' in a shop for 'mental health' - and a book can help with that believe me! I made a rapid selection, based on titles, writers, covers - the condition is secondary if all the pages are there! (check!) & chatted amiably about finches with the amateur ornithologist at the till. (Her favourite was a bullfinch...mine a chaffinch ('spink-spink!'). I love a good twitter me!) To cut a long story short...I was more than happy to see her smile, giggle even!, at my lame jokes about Charles Darwin & cockney sparrows...both local phenomena!
This 33p, worth, by Jane Gardam, with its colourful cover & title(!) was just a dream read, capturing so much in 117 pages, divided into 'slices of life'-type, enigmatically titled chapters, about visitors to Jamaica in the mid-1970s. The essential truth was beautifully related: different environment, culture & climate, different reactions...different people! So simple, so true.
A middle-class but frustrated woman from 'civilised' Barnes (by the Thames) opens the story, as she visits faraway Jamaica...& off it goes in a wonderful read about all the different, troubled souls that are transformed by their experience of the exotic nature of that jewel of an island, full of cultural & historical conflicts, climatic contrasts & casual confrontations between two (& more!) opposing worlds: staid, traditional London & the Home Counties, (a tad of the Americas!), & wild, ambiguous 'paradise' in Jamaica.
Jane Gardam writes both poetically & dialogue-ic-ally(?!), short chapters that dissect the underlying tensions between all the characters as they drift in & out of a wider, more tactile, world than the one that the visitors brought with them to a place that oozes with stimulating sensuality & a sedative, refelctive calm between violent storms & perfect peace. I loved this book...& almost worth a generous tip of at least a pound!
Visit your local charity shops & get a surprise for less than a cup of coffee!...or a rum b***a!
This 33p, worth, by Jane Gardam, with its colourful cover & title(!) was just a dream read, capturing so much in 117 pages, divided into 'slices of life'-type, enigmatically titled chapters, about visitors to Jamaica in the mid-1970s. The essential truth was beautifully related: different environment, culture & climate, different reactions...different people! So simple, so true.
A middle-class but frustrated woman from 'civilised' Barnes (by the Thames) opens the story, as she visits faraway Jamaica...& off it goes in a wonderful read about all the different, troubled souls that are transformed by their experience of the exotic nature of that jewel of an island, full of cultural & historical conflicts, climatic contrasts & casual confrontations between two (& more!) opposing worlds: staid, traditional London & the Home Counties, (a tad of the Americas!), & wild, ambiguous 'paradise' in Jamaica.
Jane Gardam writes both poetically & dialogue-ic-ally(?!), short chapters that dissect the underlying tensions between all the characters as they drift in & out of a wider, more tactile, world than the one that the visitors brought with them to a place that oozes with stimulating sensuality & a sedative, refelctive calm between violent storms & perfect peace. I loved this book...& almost worth a generous tip of at least a pound!
Visit your local charity shops & get a surprise for less than a cup of coffee!...or a rum b***a!
November 6, 2024
A surprisingly overlooked masterpiece of the linked-short-story form — one of the hardest forms to get right. Gardam's ten tales revolve around Jamaica, and specifically a resort for wealthy whites (whose POV is in all ten) but her genius is in how she subverts the POV of her own characters. The Jamaicans assert themselves throughout, come to dominate certain stories even without the megaphone. Characters like Jolly Jackson, the wild "local guide" who provides a boy (and clearly his parents too) with "The Best day of My Easter Holidays", or the two awkward thugs who run into the insane English schoolmistresses Misses DeeDee and Gongers in "Something to Tell the Girls".
Still, there are a lot more white faces here than black. But the title is earned by the white people's reactions to the locals, and how piercingly Gardam dissects the colonial and race themes. The Brits are used to veneering over awkwardness and they do so here to hilarious effect; the locals innocently injecting culpability into already-fragile relationships.
Still, there are a lot more white faces here than black. But the title is earned by the white people's reactions to the locals, and how piercingly Gardam dissects the colonial and race themes. The Brits are used to veneering over awkwardness and they do so here to hilarious effect; the locals innocently injecting culpability into already-fragile relationships.
April 30, 2012
A series of inter-related short stories about Brits vacationing in Jamaica, gives Gardam a chance to explore cultural clashes, class relations and the absurd rules we choose to live by. Vacations can allow us to examine our daily lives and Gardam makes the most of it as diverse characters face strange circumstances and muddle through with whatever skills and habits have allowed us to get to this point of our lives.
Lovely writing. I much prefer Gardam's novels that allow us a deep personal connection with known characters.
Lovely writing. I much prefer Gardam's novels that allow us a deep personal connection with known characters.
September 7, 2014
1975, a tiny book, one of her early ones for adults.
About foreign tourists in Jamaica. Reminds me of Somerset Maugham.
Gardam amazes me by how she can put so much convincing dialog in her fiction, using that to acquaint us with the speakers' personalities. That way she does not need to do a lot of omniscient-narrator description.
Vignettes is a good word for this collection.
About foreign tourists in Jamaica. Reminds me of Somerset Maugham.
Gardam amazes me by how she can put so much convincing dialog in her fiction, using that to acquaint us with the speakers' personalities. That way she does not need to do a lot of omniscient-narrator description.
Vignettes is a good word for this collection.
June 13, 2016
Quite good but side-eyeing the casual racism
January 8, 2025
Ten short stories published in 1975 all have one thing in common. Jamaica.
BABE JUDE
Mrs Filling looking for her husband somewhere down the beach of Pineapple Bay. Originally from Barnes in London (that I would have called Surrey in my youth), she comes across the notorious local Babe Jude.
MISSUS MOON
Ned is eight and Missus Moon nearly a hundred. A passing friendship after Ned has seen a funeral.
THE BEST DAY OF MY EASTER HOLIDAYS
Ned is older but we are back again in Jamaica where his parents plump for an excursion led by driver Jolly Jackson. It becomes pretty hairy but they survive. But Ned's essay is only given a B by his teacher: "Egerton. Rubbish. See me."
THE POOL BOY
I guess that if, like Lady Fletcher (in Jamaica on doctor's advice but without her husband) sitting by the pool all day at a luxury hotel, you are bound to be accosted at times by its residents. But it's only after her husband arrives and they move to a bungalow by the pool that her sleep is interrupted.
THE WEEPING CHILD
A bi-annual visit to her daughter in Kingston, Jamaica for the elderly Mrs Kingston. At a party she tells a ghost story.
THE HOUSE ABOVE NEWCASTLE
Two startlingly good looking young people honeymoon at the Pineapple Bay Hotel in Jamaica. Catriona (Pussy to her friends) Fox-Coutts and her husband Boofy Fielding. Who do they see on the beach but Ned. Taking a car out into the wilderness after the rain has stopped, only to have another deluge. But at the top of the mountain they find shelter, and themselves at last.
SAUL ALONE
Narrated by Saul, nearly eighty, but he cannot speak due to a stroke. But he hears everything as his wife Ruthie holds forth beside the hotel pool, immaculate in appearance, forthright in manner. "He's been a wonderful man. (Seems like I'm dead)". They are visited by characters from other stories.
THE FIRST DECLENSION
"A suitable marriage. Really quite a remarkable marriage". Both tall, both rich. An appropriate wedding. Many years later, in middle age, Anne Shaw stays at home while her husband goes off the Barbados. No, it's actually our hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. The exchange of letters makes Anne extremely uncomfortable. "But marmalade (why she cannot go too), Latin (her daughter needs her help -no), Harrods's socks and local politics had always seemed her boundaries". But a strange unpredictable ending (see the title) when she is invited by a friend into his white Rolls Royce, jumps out and heads up Kensington Church Street (I know it so well).
SOMETHING TO TELL THE GIRLS
Miss Dee-Dee and Miss Gongers are ancient teachers at an all girls school. Both met at Cambridge before women were awarded degrees, Yes, that old. An interlude in Jamaica, stopping at Newcastle before, in-advisably, hiring an unreliable car to take them into the interior. (Gongers never drives at home). A kind of adventure.
MONIQUE
We are back in Pineapple Bay with young Ned and his parents. Also there are Lady Fletcher and her husband the judge, and that stunning Bolivian lady Mrs Santamarina. Is it she stiff as a board on the beach at night? Has Robert Shaw anything to do with it. (See above). But it's Lady Fletcher who is dispatched to see what is wrong. We never really know.
BABE JUDE
Mrs Filling looking for her husband somewhere down the beach of Pineapple Bay. Originally from Barnes in London (that I would have called Surrey in my youth), she comes across the notorious local Babe Jude.
MISSUS MOON
Ned is eight and Missus Moon nearly a hundred. A passing friendship after Ned has seen a funeral.
THE BEST DAY OF MY EASTER HOLIDAYS
Ned is older but we are back again in Jamaica where his parents plump for an excursion led by driver Jolly Jackson. It becomes pretty hairy but they survive. But Ned's essay is only given a B by his teacher: "Egerton. Rubbish. See me."
THE POOL BOY
I guess that if, like Lady Fletcher (in Jamaica on doctor's advice but without her husband) sitting by the pool all day at a luxury hotel, you are bound to be accosted at times by its residents. But it's only after her husband arrives and they move to a bungalow by the pool that her sleep is interrupted.
THE WEEPING CHILD
A bi-annual visit to her daughter in Kingston, Jamaica for the elderly Mrs Kingston. At a party she tells a ghost story.
THE HOUSE ABOVE NEWCASTLE
Two startlingly good looking young people honeymoon at the Pineapple Bay Hotel in Jamaica. Catriona (Pussy to her friends) Fox-Coutts and her husband Boofy Fielding. Who do they see on the beach but Ned. Taking a car out into the wilderness after the rain has stopped, only to have another deluge. But at the top of the mountain they find shelter, and themselves at last.
SAUL ALONE
Narrated by Saul, nearly eighty, but he cannot speak due to a stroke. But he hears everything as his wife Ruthie holds forth beside the hotel pool, immaculate in appearance, forthright in manner. "He's been a wonderful man. (Seems like I'm dead)". They are visited by characters from other stories.
THE FIRST DECLENSION
"A suitable marriage. Really quite a remarkable marriage". Both tall, both rich. An appropriate wedding. Many years later, in middle age, Anne Shaw stays at home while her husband goes off the Barbados. No, it's actually our hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. The exchange of letters makes Anne extremely uncomfortable. "But marmalade (why she cannot go too), Latin (her daughter needs her help -no), Harrods's socks and local politics had always seemed her boundaries". But a strange unpredictable ending (see the title) when she is invited by a friend into his white Rolls Royce, jumps out and heads up Kensington Church Street (I know it so well).
SOMETHING TO TELL THE GIRLS
Miss Dee-Dee and Miss Gongers are ancient teachers at an all girls school. Both met at Cambridge before women were awarded degrees, Yes, that old. An interlude in Jamaica, stopping at Newcastle before, in-advisably, hiring an unreliable car to take them into the interior. (Gongers never drives at home). A kind of adventure.
MONIQUE
We are back in Pineapple Bay with young Ned and his parents. Also there are Lady Fletcher and her husband the judge, and that stunning Bolivian lady Mrs Santamarina. Is it she stiff as a board on the beach at night? Has Robert Shaw anything to do with it. (See above). But it's Lady Fletcher who is dispatched to see what is wrong. We never really know.
September 29, 2023
B. O. R. I. N. G
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 16, 2023
I've read quite a few books by Jane Gardam, and I've loved all of them. I came across this small book of short stories on Amazon, so bought a used copy of it immediately. This book was written quite a long time ago, so there were different attitudes, but the times were beginning to change....
The stories are mostly about wealthy British people, couples or families, who vacationed in Jamaica. There was a strong sense that they were revered as important people & treated with deference. However, once the vacationers would leave the resort & go deeper into the country, it was clear that those who lived there did not appreciate their presence. There was some obvious racism, on both sides, with the Brits being condescending to the Jamaicans, & the Jamaicans displaying some hatred to them, calling them names such as "white face, go home." The author touched on this topic slightly, just giving the reader a glimpse into how things were in the mid-1970s, when this book was written.
There seemed to be quite a bit of connection between the characters in the stories, which is enjoyable. There was even mention of a couple characters from Ms. Gardam's novels, specifically the Old Filth trilogy.
The stories are mostly about wealthy British people, couples or families, who vacationed in Jamaica. There was a strong sense that they were revered as important people & treated with deference. However, once the vacationers would leave the resort & go deeper into the country, it was clear that those who lived there did not appreciate their presence. There was some obvious racism, on both sides, with the Brits being condescending to the Jamaicans, & the Jamaicans displaying some hatred to them, calling them names such as "white face, go home." The author touched on this topic slightly, just giving the reader a glimpse into how things were in the mid-1970s, when this book was written.
There seemed to be quite a bit of connection between the characters in the stories, which is enjoyable. There was even mention of a couple characters from Ms. Gardam's novels, specifically the Old Filth trilogy.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews