The Pain Tree

by Olive Senior

Olive Senior’s new collection of stories, The Pain Tree, is wide-ranging in scope, time period, theme, locale, and voice.Like her earlier stories, Jamaica is the setting but the range of characters presented are universally recognizable as people in crisis or on the cusp of transformation.

Collected here are revenge stories (“The Goodness of my Heart”), a bargain with the Devil (“Boxed-in”), a Cinderella story (“The Country Cousin”), a magical realist interpretation of African spiritual beliefs (“Flying”) and a narrator’s belated acceptance of the healing power of traditional beliefs (“The Pain Tree”). “Coal” is a realist story set in the war years and depression that followed as folks try to find a new place in the world. Senior’s trademark children awakening to self-awareness and to the hypocrisy of adults are here too, from the heartbreaking “Moonlight” and “Silent” to the girls in “Lollipop” and “A Father Like That” who learn to confront loneliness and vulnerability with attitude.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

194 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2015

About the author

Olive Senior was born and brought up in Jamaica in 1941 and educated in Jamaica and Canada. She is a graduate of Montego Bay High School and Carleton University, Ottawa.

She is one of Canada's most internationally recognized and acclaimed writers having left Jamaica in 1989, spending some years in Europe and since 1993 being based in Toronto.

Among her many awards and honours she has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and F.G. Bressani Literary Prize, was nominated for a Governor-General’s Literary Award, and was runner up for the Casa de Las Americas Prize and the Pat Lowther Award. In 2003, she received the Norman Washington Manley Foundation Award for Excellence (preservation of cultural heritage – Jamaica). Her body of published work includes four books of poetry, three collections of short stories and several award-winning non-fiction works on Caribbean culture.

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Updated June 20
I decided to re-read The Pain Tree for Read Caribbean month, because I love a great collection of short stories and I remember wanting to experience Olive Senior's writing again. There are ten stories in this collection, each that goes through themes of grief, identity, belonging, community, and love. Each story is will written with a kick at the end that will leave you going... "oh" or a smirk that you cannot wipe off.

My favorite stories from the collection were:
The Pain Tree
Coal
The Goodness of my Heart
Cousin From Country

If you are in the mood for a collection of stories with RANGE. Pick this up!


October 2018
I have been sleeping on Oliver Senior and I am deeply ashamed.

There is only one way to describe Pain Tree... "deeply moving" . I cannot get over what an amazing Writer Olive Senior is. It takes an excellent writer to convey a range of emotions out of a reader from just 4-10 pages and every single story in this book moved me. I cannot pick one specific story because every single one could stand on it's own.

I wish I had words to describe how great this book is. I cannot shut up about Oliver Senior's writing. How she is able to write memorable characters in just 6 pages is beyond me but I am making it my personal duty to go out and read all her works.


I highly recommend this book to anyone who is remotely interested in Caribbean Literature or reading a solid collection of short stories.

[Kiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Later, YaYa came into the room with a small calabash full of a dark and viscous liquid. By now he had ceased to ask about anything she gave him and he swallowed it...

"It take a long time to make. Is not something to drink any and every day. We feel the time is ripe."

"For what?"

"It will give you spirit. Whatever you are to be, will be."

In the last story there is a guava, golden and perfect, at the top of a tree farther on in the hills. The character must tread towards it, as stone and dirt roll down before him, never losing sight until he gets close enough to pick and eat.

Approach The Pain Tree with similar focus. Regard its fruit, pick, consume it slowly. Carefully. Savour its sweetness, swallow its sorrow, accept its viscous darkness. Let it ripen within you, break down, dissolve and merge. And whatever you are to be, will be.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘“Let us say, Lorraine, I feel a heavy burden, too heavy for me to bear, if I give the nail to the tree and ask it to take my burden from me, is so it go. Then I get relief.”’
.
I am not a usual reader of short stories - in fact, I don’t think I’ve read a full short story collection ever!? I only found this book (and author) after both came highly recommended by a fellow bookstagrammer and I am deeply pleased to say I will be searching high and low for more of Olive Senior’s work. She is brilliant - she packs so much into 7 pages and I find myself remembering many of the characters. My favorite story was “Coal,” about a boy who never speaks and goes about his work dutifully. When he disappears, the others he worked with and for finally realize how much work he did and how much they took him for granted.
.
I found an article online where Senior reflects on this work, “what seems to link the stories is that all of them focus on people on the cusp of transformation - that moment or incident that will change their lives.” and I couldn’t agree more. I loved this body of work - it ripped my heart out in the best of ways and I find myself thinking about many stories still. This is a fantastic book about Jamaica by a Jamaican author.

[Shivanee Ramlochan]

Again, Olive Senior shows why she's the doyenne of the literary stage -- she pulls wires, shifts props, plants suggestion, primes actors and orchestrates the whole with a kind of unassuming deftness and quiet determination you'd want by your side in a brawl or a bookshop alike.

Full review forthcoming in the Trinidad Guardian's Sunday Arts Section.

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Olive Senior through a friend's recommendation. I was very excited to read my first book by her, 'The Pain Tree'.

'The Pain Tree' is a collection of ten short stories. The title story 'The Pain Tree' is about a young woman who comes back home after a long time and thinks about her childhood, especially about someone who brought her up. It is a beautiful, haunting story and one of my favourites from the book. In 'Moonlight', the narrator likes getting up at night and going out in the moonlight, but one day she sees something that she is not supposed to, and her world turns upside down. 'Silent' is what happens to a kid and his family who get caught in the middle of a gang shootout. In 'A Father Like That', the narrator almost sings the story in Jamaican English, and it is such a pleasure to read. 'Coal' is about a young woman, her housekeeper and a silent boy who works in their home. I learnt from this story that we can make coal out of wood, but the process is delicate and complex. I always thought that coal is only there in coal mines. The longest story in the book which runs to more than forty pages is 'The Country Cousin'. It has everything we'd expect from a long story – a wonderful start, interesting characters, conflict between characters, people plotting against each other, good characters suffering at the hands of the bad, a surprise ending. Whether the ending is happy or sad, you have to read the story to find out. The last story 'Flying' is beautiful, sad, haunting, and has folkoric and magical elements in it. It made me think of one of my favourite books, 'Root Magic' by Eden Royce. There are more stories, but I won't say anything about them, but will let you discover their pleasures when you read them.

I'm glad I read my first Olive Senior book. I loved it. Hoping to read more of her books.

Have you read 'The Pain Tree'? What do you think about it?

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of 10 short stories was my introduction to Olive Senior and I will be seeking out more of her work. These span a wide range of time and look at issues of class, race, and family relationships. Most of these stories are 10-15 pages and it is impressive what she is able to accomplish in such a short work. Some of the reviews referenced that this collection features the stories of people who are either in crisis or on the cusp of transformation - and stories about the cusp of transformation appeal to me. I find it interesting to see how authors present the before and after when looking at transformation. It’s hard for me to narrow down a favorite in this collection - “Boxed In” was really original and masterful in what it accomplished, Coal made me pause and think in more than one place, but I think the one that will linger the longest for me is The Pain Tree so I’ll close with a quote from that one. “Standing there, gazing upwards, it came to me why Larissa and all those women had kept on giving the tree their pain, like prayers. Because they knew no matter what else happened in their lives, the tree would keep on bearing them up, higher and higher, year after year.”- You could probably write a thesis on whether or not the narrator has enough understanding and perspective to truly understand what she is saying in that quote or if she is trying to assuage some of her personal guilt or remorse.

[O · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began reading this a while back and I have just finished it, and it feels like a dream/ wake journey.

I never have anything richly profound or highfalutin to say about anything, but I can say that these stories are just so endemically Caribbean.

I am part of the shelling-peas oral tradition, where generations of Caribbean mothers and daughters have sat in kitchens and told stories. And it is not only the stories of our families, but of people. Different classes, backgrounds, whole family scandals and histories are revealed, and unlike water cooler talk, which is quick, subjective and juicy, there is time in that kitchen to unravel a whole story.

These stories remind me of this tradition, these hurts, these situations, like my mother revealing stories of people who she knew in the past and how they were coping now. No story really ends, even in death, it goes on, like in "A Father Like That". "Coal" is another classic I know I've heard before, different names and situations, just like "The Country Cousin."

But the one that hit me the hardest had to be "Boxed In".

An excellent collection.

[Apphia Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider the book I'm reading my "company". The Pain Tree was really good company. Each story is distinct and equally enthralling. From the first short story "the Pain Tree" to the ending "Flight". No single theme pervaded this collection - I can't pin it down as one having a single prominent/recurring theme throughout. I did however, feel a progression through time. I particularly loved BOXED IN - written without any bias, unassuming; not that I condone Mr Everett's actions etc. but I admire that; the ability to give each character what is theirs, so to speak.

More than a few of the writers at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest this year (2017), in events like "The Books That Made Me" referred to Olive Senior as one of their influences. With this in mind, I sought to read some of her work. It helped that Paperbased was all out of Augustown by Kei Miller and Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani but The Pain Tree caught my attention - so too did the silver "OCM BOCAS PRIZE WINNER" sticker.

[2TReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Pain Tree, Olive Senior writes so masterfully, that her readers have no choice but to become a part of each story, becoming emotionally engaged in the literal tapestry she weaves.

Whether it's the titular story where the significance of the pain tree is imparted upon privileged Lorraine; Silent where Joel witnesses the death of his father and the callousness of the police force, but also the strength of his mother; Boxed In where Mr. Everett becomes quite frightened at the advent of an invention that can capture the deeds(both good and bad) of anyone and replay them for all and sundry to see; to Flying, where Jonathan returns home to die, only to finally come to the realization, with the help of his Yaya, that a part of him, which has been passed down from ancestors, was stolen.

Senior executes each story with wit and tackles social themes with a dark humour that instantly captivates readers, such that they become entrenched within each story.

Brilliant.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounded up.

[Makeda / ColourLit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in ‘The Pain Tree’ are short but succinct (10 stories across 180 pages). Senior is deft at writing full and rich characters with sparse prose. She constructs believable scenes, complete with unexpected twists. Her range is impressive; I particularly enjoyed the stories that spoke to the issue of respectability politics and class inequalities; some characters used their class to hide deviant personalities, others acted ‘respectable’ in order to move up the class hierarchy.

My favourite story—‘Boxed-In’—focused on Mr Everrett; pillar of the community, powerful, moneyed and tethered (unbeknownst to everyone else) to the spiritual world. Everett’s world is upended when the community’s land is sold to a bauxite company and they are relocated to Town (Kingston). On a visit he sees a TV for the first time and becomes convinced that it’s a microcosm of the real world, recording/broadcasting people’s actions without them knowing. He starts to withdraw, presenting as if he has locked-in syndrome. This story starts out quite twee and sentimental but becomes creepy once Senior shows us the many sides of Everrett’s persona (it’s interesting to see the lengths he goes to, to rationalise his behaviour). Senior does more in this 20 page story than other authors can dream of doing in a novel - her characters are so vibrant, she paints their worlds with so much detail, it’s all so credible and visceral.

I highly recommend this collection - if you’ve not read Senior before this is the perfect starting point. Buy it, you won’t regret it!

[Debbie Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Olive Senior's collection of short stories shine for their ability to capture the boundaries between rich and poor; rural and urban in Jamaica. As a whole, they have a cohesiveness that reminds me of what RK Narayan accomplished in his novels about Malgudi. She is one of the best short story writers in the world.

[Anisa Dijkhoffz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is filled with funny short stories about life and experiences on a caribbean island. Some stories were written in the local dialect which made the story come alive even more. I enjoyed reading this book!

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pain Tree introduces you to characters who have complex feelings: acceptance, loneliness, power, affluence, neglect, revenge, lust, and so many more. She takes you into the hearts of women who are blinded by jealously in the name of betterment. Her characters are multi-dimensional and have natural yearnings that sometimes lead them astray. So here are my top 5 stories from The Pain Tree:

🥥 The Goodness of My Heart - A wife who’s husband cheats on her, decides as revenge, to “adopt” his four outside children and raise them in their home. She only discovers at the reading of his will that her husband actually had 10 outside children!
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

🥥 Boxed-In - Mr Everett is threatened by the changes happening in his community. But only because it will upend his power and influence and expose his clandestine dealings with both the living and the dead.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

🥥 The Country Cousin - Mrs F has successfully caught herself a rich husband and a life she wants. She then comes face to face with all that she envies when her niece moves in. Jealously turns to disaster when Mrs F’s deceit backfires.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

🥥 Coal - A boy named Vincent stops talking after witnessing various deaths and is taken in by the daughter of a plantation owner. He proves his intelligence and his loyalty when he returns to help her during the hard times of WWII.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2

🥥 The Pain Tree - A young woman returns home after her father’s death, but she feels out of place. She then explores her memories of being raised by a woman named Larissa and she finally understands the purpose of the pain tree.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Bill Brydon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The eloquent portrayal of grief in this excerpt calls to mind a sculpture noted below.
"She stopped when she reached the cedar tree, and I watched as she stood for a good while with her head bent close to the tree and her lips moving as if she were praying. Then she pounded the trunk of the tree with the stone, threw the stone down, and strode off without looking back. When I went and examined the tree, I saw that she had hammered in a nail. I was even more astonished to notice there were many nails hammered right into the trunk. At first, I sensed that this was something so private I should keep quiet about it. But I couldn’t help it, and one day I asked Larissa why she had put the nail into the tree. “Don’t is the pain tree?” she asked in a surprised voice, as if that was something everyone knew. “What do you mean by ‘pain tree’?” “Eh, where you come from, girl?” Larissa exclaimed. “Don’t is the tree you give your pain to?” I must have looked puzzled still, for she took the trouble to explain. “Let us say, Lorraine, I feel a heavy burden, too heavy for me to bear, if I give the nail to the tree and ask it to take my burden from me, is so it go. Then I get relief.”
Rebecca Belmore One Thousand, One Hundred & Eighty One, 2014

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: http://hotpepperlatte.com/index.php/2...

There is often a lot of attention given to young, talented authors who write a bestseller or award-winner. We love to talk about them and how young and how gifted they are. But there is something to be gained from a writer with years of experience and practice under her belt, and that is epitomized in Senior. Her writing is thoughtful, each line measured carefully to carry across the experiences of the young, old, wealthy, poor, and all types of Jamaicans in between from 1930 to 1960. She captures the truth of life with humour and insight which remind me of Austen and is likely one of the reasons I enjoyed her collection so much.

There is much fun to be had in the likes of Mr. Everett’s fear of television from “Boxed-In” and Mrs. Bailiff’s adopted children in “The Goodness of My Heart.” Surrounding these stories are the intersections of shadeism, classism, sexism, and homophobia which Jamaican society is built upon. And as you sit with the cruel, the selfish and the cunning you realize that all things are in perspective.

[Nessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oooh! Olive Senior does not disappoint! Loved this collection, and will for sure think of these stories for a long time. Absolutely has staying power. Highly recommend.

[Kevon Dussie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pain Tree is a book that consists of a series of short stories. I would rate this book 5 stars. I enjoy reading all the stories but my favourite stories are Moonlight, Silent and Coal. I could relate to some of the activities that took place in the stories which makes it easier to understand. The Pain Tree is great, it conveys different types of emotions from the reader and makes the reader continuously predict and ask questions about what will happen next. I think that people who love to read short stories should try the book and people that have Caribbean origins, and those who want to learn about different aspects of Jamaican life.

“Standing there, gazing upwards, it came to me why Larissa and all those women had kept on giving the tree their pain, like prayers. Because they knew no matter what else happened in their lives, the tree would keep on bearing them up, higher and higher, year after year.”

The first story, ‘The Pain Tree’ is about a young girl named Lorraine that was taken care of by a woman called Larissa. They shared a close bond with each other. Lorraine’s parents sent her off to boarding school at the age of ten and the day she was leaving, she left without saying goodbye to Larrisa. After her father passed away, she returned home and started remembering her childhood. Then she searched for the Pain Tree and drove a nail in it.

Moonlight is about a young girl that goes outside every moonshine to gaze at the moon and the stars. One night she heard noises coming from the maid’s quarters and she went to check and found out her dad was having an affair with the maid, Dorleen. She was never the same after that and during the summer, Dorleen was paid off to leave the house because she was 4 months pregnant and everyone knew who the father was. Then they got a new maid and Dorleen was never mentioned in the house again.

Silent is about a family’s home invasion which struck the children with fear and were told to stay under the bed by their mother. Joel crawled out a little bit further from under the bed to see what’s happening and saw blood coming from his father. The two gunmen were searching for something, tossing things around and hitting their mother. Moments later the police came and they all went with the police then they took the mother’s statement. Afterwards they left and were on they’re way to a new location.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 A beautiful and deeply moving collection of stories with the many different voices of Jamaican life.
Senior is a prolific Jamaican-Canadian writer, having published many volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and even children’s books. This collection won the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (previous winners include Marlon James for A Brief History of Seven Killings). Each story was thoughtful with seasoned prose and nuanced dialogue. Even when the characters failed to understand their own behaviours, the reader recognized the struggles and made each experience that much more meaningful.

The final story "Flying" was truly a favourite short story of mine. A fine, enduring collection of short stories. I love her poetry and loved her short stories just as much.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book after exploring authors mentioned in one of the chapters of Evaristo’s “Girl, Woman, Other” and I’m so glad that I did. Senior is an excellent storyteller who has mastered the art of the short story. Each story captures your attention quickly and almost always went in a direction I could understand once we were heading there, but had not anticipated. The breadth of her stories, in type of narrator, time, class, and content, was impressive. She is also able to write so concisely and precisely, crafting a time and space that sucks you in, but still feels finished by the end. Very well done.

[Sara Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading currently for a college comp class and I have a question about The Pain Tree. In it, the narrator states she never noticed new nails in the tree after discovering the tree and asking Larissa to explain the purpose. “Perhaps if I had been older and wiser I would have interpreted this differently, but at the time I took it to mean that Larissa felt no more pain.” Thoughts on what that wiser interpretation was???

[MariaR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book of short stories (and this is coming from someone who is not a fan of short stories). Very engaging, and shows the classicism that existed in Jamaica and in some ways still exists.
Favorites were A Father like that, Coal, The Country Cousin and Flying.

Definitely a must read!

[Abby Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this short story collection to be rich, comforting and healing. Like the last story “Flying” I realised, like the character, I was picking each story carefully examining it, consuming it slowly, savouring its sweetness, and its tangy flavour. It’s the best way to consume Olive Seniors work.

[Chantel DaCosta · Rating 3 out of 5]

10 short stories and I loved the last three.

[LauraJan Obermuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful short stories!

[Priscila Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

Amazing

[Kaya]

DNF after three stories, not vibing with this at all.

[Tabi Normal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was lucky enough to hear olive senior read some of her poems from other volumes - some of these stories really drew me in - flying, the country cousin and boxed-in in particular

[Brian Double · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed Boxed-In

[Niamh]

read this for uni