Uncle Brother

by Barbara Lalla

Uncle Brother unfolds a tale of unflinching devotion against a tapestry of neglect and exploitation. Under the curious eyes of a succession of children glimmer fragments of stories that interlock to produce the saga of Nathan Deoraj – brother, uncle and teacher. The young boy on an early twentieth- century cocoa estate in Trinidad begins his own story, and soon the opportunity for education and Nathan’s own passion for books opens the way to a brilliant future. Then a crippling loss reshapes his path. However, the very limitations that close on him provoke him to unleash his mind into the awakening consciousnesses around him. Others who have taken up the tale reveal how Nathan’s subsequent choices lead to a recharting of countless lives and to the forging of connections that cross Caribbean social divides. Yet, running alongside Nathan’s devotion to family and community are stories of those children who had no Nathan. Resentments arise and smolder, shocking injustice leads to tragedy, and, in old age, Nathan must tap yet deeper reserves of strength and endurance. Uncle Brother speaks to audiences of all ages in and beyond the Caribbean by exploring bonds between children and older family members, and, uniquely, between a girl growing to awareness in the light and shade of a powerful male relative. Then, threading the tale of the living legend are cries for help from a child who enters the story late in Nathan’s life, when nothing more should have been required of him.

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

Reviews

[Robert Turcotte]

Barbara Lalla's 2014 novel, Uncle Brother, published by The University of the West Indies Press, is a wise, culturally faithful and very funny tribute to heroism and loving personal sacrifice in family life. This third novel focuses on the subtle and not-so-subtle cultural and historical richness of the people of the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. Her first two novels, Cascade and Arch of Fire, focused on her native Jamaica, where she grew up, studied, and fell in love with a gifted young Trinidadian also at UWI in Mona. Her subsequent decades in Trinidad, where she lives, teaches and writes, have made possible this faithful and brilliant tribute that begins in the 19th century and ends in 2010, a decade into the twenty-first.

The book's central character of "Nathan" found inspiration in a real person from a bustling rural town in southern Trinidad. Nathan is the fictional main "author" of his family's story, put together from a treasure trove of notes and documents in English, including one in French and one in Hindi he has written or collected and saved through eight decades. Members of his family and friends also contribute their memories to the story. Both sides of the precocious Nathan's family came from India in the 19th century when they were brought to Trinidad as indentured labourers after slavery from Africa had been "abolished." The complexity of feelings produced by this continental uprooting is just one aspect of the history of Trinidad's people that Lalla presents with great sensitivity and insight.

The scope of the story has enabled talented, perceptive, and poetically memorable reflections on both intensely personal and broader 21st century political issues. It describes the struggles of the folk on a small, multi-cultural, "multi-continental" island to endure a final century of colonial government and later govern themselves during over half a century of self-government after independence from Britain on 1 August, 1962.

One unforgettable example: Nathan's 12-year-old sister, Judith, who often helped her mother in her "vegetable" garden, asks him about the descriptions of beautiful gardens by great English authors he has given her to read: "How could karaile and pumpkin and all the other things that grew in a garden like Ma's be pretty?" Nathan soon after took her on a journey to Port of Spain to see the Royal Botanical Gardens. Judith reflects: "It made him still more godlike in my eyes, for although he had not made the garden he had placed me in it however briefly and it in me forever... " 

The story includes playful and often hilarious dialogue in Trinidad "English," a combination of English and Creole French with the languages of other cultures, like Spanish, Hindi and Amerindian that have interacted over the centuries since Columbus arrived in 1498. A massive 12,000-entry testimony to the seductive pull of Trini-talk is Dictionary of the English Creole of Trinidad and Tobago by Canadian editor Lise Winer who has devoted many years to collecting and referencing a language that makes English itself richer.

This inspiring, captivating story is also a thriller that includes some violence and, toward the end, some vitally important suspense. It is a wonderful, mature tour-de-force by a sophisticated story-teller that combines many laugh-out-loud moments with a complex worldview and a deep understanding of the human psyche.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book on the recommendation of Nalo Hopkinson during an online discussion of her own work. This multigenerational saga of a poor family in Trinidad and their struggles to survive and succeed was a fascinating into life in the country during that time. Uncle Brother is one of the brothers in the early part of the book and as he grows up, and takes on more family responsibility he becomes Uncle. The ending was seemed to veer off from the train of the rest of the book and it was a bit long (so I am really at a 3.5), but overall I enjoyed it. I like reading about people in other times and places, in cultures that I know little about so this fit the bill.