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Between Islands
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 25, 2025
Between Islands is a collection of short stories about people in and from The Bahamas . I will say off the bat I know Rhys personally and that may colour the way I read the book.
Rhys's writing flows. He writes with an island rhythm, yet the voice reminded me of a "classic" book (think Oliver Twist or Moll Flanders). It's been a long time since I've had to google what some words mean in a book but Rhys had me pausing to nail down exactly what a word meant in a sentence. I like when writers flex their erudite quality. To boil it down to one sentence - the writing read with both island tang, having Bahamian dialect throughout, and the thickness of "classic." It was unlike anything I've read up until now but highly enjoyable.
I always find it hard to review short story collections. Do you review stories one by one or do you look at the work as a whole? Taking the work as a whole approach, I have read 2 or 3 of these stories before as some of them have appeared online through literary magazines etc. The characters are all distinct and fascinating. Rhys doesn't just write about Nassau living but extends his stories to some of the family islands. I love when writers imbue their own personal experiences into their stories, and you can see it throughout Between Islands .
The open endings of the stories made me pause. I love an open ending that allows for reflection. I'm so happy to see more Bahamian work out into the world. I think this is great contribution to the short story world, Caribbean literature in general, and the continuation of building the Bahamian literary tradition. Rhys dives deep with the different symbols and themes in each story. I'm excited to see what else he will come up with in the future.
Rank the stories from my favourite to least favourite - which was actually extremely hard to do especially towards the middle - are as follows:
Sea Oats
Friday Visits
Remaining Friends
Sponger Money
The Boundaries of Our Inheritance
Everyone Wants It to Be Morning
The Cay
Rhys's writing flows. He writes with an island rhythm, yet the voice reminded me of a "classic" book (think Oliver Twist or Moll Flanders). It's been a long time since I've had to google what some words mean in a book but Rhys had me pausing to nail down exactly what a word meant in a sentence. I like when writers flex their erudite quality. To boil it down to one sentence - the writing read with both island tang, having Bahamian dialect throughout, and the thickness of "classic." It was unlike anything I've read up until now but highly enjoyable.
I always find it hard to review short story collections. Do you review stories one by one or do you look at the work as a whole? Taking the work as a whole approach, I have read 2 or 3 of these stories before as some of them have appeared online through literary magazines etc. The characters are all distinct and fascinating. Rhys doesn't just write about Nassau living but extends his stories to some of the family islands. I love when writers imbue their own personal experiences into their stories, and you can see it throughout Between Islands .
The open endings of the stories made me pause. I love an open ending that allows for reflection. I'm so happy to see more Bahamian work out into the world. I think this is great contribution to the short story world, Caribbean literature in general, and the continuation of building the Bahamian literary tradition. Rhys dives deep with the different symbols and themes in each story. I'm excited to see what else he will come up with in the future.
Rank the stories from my favourite to least favourite - which was actually extremely hard to do especially towards the middle - are as follows:
Sea Oats
Friday Visits
Remaining Friends
Sponger Money
The Boundaries of Our Inheritance
Everyone Wants It to Be Morning
The Cay
August 10, 2025
"Crazy people have no destination." pg. 19
Between Islands offers admirably faithful qualities of Magic Realism in these seven stories. Though mostly written in first person, the narrators provide such detailed overviews of the natural and marine environment, through unexaggerated reported speech and well suited jargon that even when concomitant with events that might seem extrapolated or even impossible (another feature of MR) those impossibilities become much more believable.
I chose the above quote to begin the review because it cements much of what I find striking about the collection. By the time I came across it, I was halfway through The Cay, a short story about a man attempting to find meaning in his hotelier line of work and to redeem the place from extreme pestilence. When an adrift sailor shouts this line to him, the allusion to Rime of the Ancient Mariner by S. T. Coleridge came to the fore signaling a mutual focus on the supernatural and the ways in which nature itself can become an imprisoning, personified force.
This is an important assertion to make in a Caribbean context, here Rhys there is a clever reference to the age old assumption that Caribbean people have often been seen historically and stereotpically as operating on "island time" often with no destination. This, of course can be viewed as maddening and often can feel maddening. This doubled up with the sometimes exploitative and dehumanizing effects of the tourism industry and local, circular problems might inspire the sane to leave - brain drain.
Ironically, many of the problems generated in the region are effects of actions originating elsewhere - take climate change for example. Rhys leans into these difficult subjects without sacrificing the internal lives of the individuals to tell these stories.
The characters try to care for their families, to take daring risks for their livelihoods and loved ones, to meet each other in the gulf created by changing perspectives after migrating vs staying behind. The existential tug while working toward something even when it felt pointless or the sheer rebellion of choosing to simply exist without becoming engulfed by capitalist expectations might seem like madness but is the reality of so many.
As someone from a small archipelago, I appreciated the care taken to tell the stories that may be simple to others but are just as beautiful. The ferrying among the islands, the appreciation for the flora, fauna and marine life, the care in the naming of the Family Islands as if they really are a family. More impressively is the conversion of these features - whether it be the hutia or the manta ray - to fluid and evocative symbols.
Rhys stretches across the geographical length of the islands as well as the chronology, venturing as far as the 19th century to tell a story configured on the local practice of Sponge fishing. I really enjoyed learning about the Bahamas and I appreciated the deliberate specificity of the references. It invites a reader to think about the effortless adoration of homeland(s), in the Bahamas and by extension, the larger Caribbean. In the end, there is so much more to that love than mere marketing and while that might appear to be madness to outsiders, there's no other position with as much convincing clarity.
Between Islands offers admirably faithful qualities of Magic Realism in these seven stories. Though mostly written in first person, the narrators provide such detailed overviews of the natural and marine environment, through unexaggerated reported speech and well suited jargon that even when concomitant with events that might seem extrapolated or even impossible (another feature of MR) those impossibilities become much more believable.
I chose the above quote to begin the review because it cements much of what I find striking about the collection. By the time I came across it, I was halfway through The Cay, a short story about a man attempting to find meaning in his hotelier line of work and to redeem the place from extreme pestilence. When an adrift sailor shouts this line to him, the allusion to Rime of the Ancient Mariner by S. T. Coleridge came to the fore signaling a mutual focus on the supernatural and the ways in which nature itself can become an imprisoning, personified force.
This is an important assertion to make in a Caribbean context, here Rhys there is a clever reference to the age old assumption that Caribbean people have often been seen historically and stereotpically as operating on "island time" often with no destination. This, of course can be viewed as maddening and often can feel maddening. This doubled up with the sometimes exploitative and dehumanizing effects of the tourism industry and local, circular problems might inspire the sane to leave - brain drain.
Ironically, many of the problems generated in the region are effects of actions originating elsewhere - take climate change for example. Rhys leans into these difficult subjects without sacrificing the internal lives of the individuals to tell these stories.
The characters try to care for their families, to take daring risks for their livelihoods and loved ones, to meet each other in the gulf created by changing perspectives after migrating vs staying behind. The existential tug while working toward something even when it felt pointless or the sheer rebellion of choosing to simply exist without becoming engulfed by capitalist expectations might seem like madness but is the reality of so many.
As someone from a small archipelago, I appreciated the care taken to tell the stories that may be simple to others but are just as beautiful. The ferrying among the islands, the appreciation for the flora, fauna and marine life, the care in the naming of the Family Islands as if they really are a family. More impressively is the conversion of these features - whether it be the hutia or the manta ray - to fluid and evocative symbols.
Rhys stretches across the geographical length of the islands as well as the chronology, venturing as far as the 19th century to tell a story configured on the local practice of Sponge fishing. I really enjoyed learning about the Bahamas and I appreciated the deliberate specificity of the references. It invites a reader to think about the effortless adoration of homeland(s), in the Bahamas and by extension, the larger Caribbean. In the end, there is so much more to that love than mere marketing and while that might appear to be madness to outsiders, there's no other position with as much convincing clarity.
June 14, 2025
I bought this book at a small coffee shop on Long Island. It's my first book from a Bahamian author. As a Bahamian, I was impressed as I flipped through the short stories at the author's ability to paint such vivid pictures in print. A sense of nostalgia set in and intensified as I read on. I thoroughly enjoyed each one and left wanting more. I cannot wait to read more of his pieces.
February 23, 2025
5 - Wow! These stories highlight some of the most fascinating aspects of fiction. It is marvellous to see the various forms of Bahamian life fluidly taking shape in the form of prose. It's also an admirable feat to show and not tell in a written medium. The uses of symbolism, motifs and thematic consistency all contribute to the surrealist nature of each story. The characters are all recognisable in Bahamian people I've known or known of and the islands themselves seem to have lives of their own.
The open endings of every story truly allow space to pause and consider; as we part ways with our companions that we've become familiar with along the way, be it the islands or the people within them.
The open endings of every story truly allow space to pause and consider; as we part ways with our companions that we've become familiar with along the way, be it the islands or the people within them.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews