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Layaway Child: Stories
Magnificent stories about Caribbean immigrants navigating the emotional terrain of girlhood, displacement, longing, and identity across continents.
Layaway Child is a luminous debut short story collection by award-winning writer Chanel Sutherland that explores the emotional landscapes of Caribbean families fractured by migration, especially the harrowing yet resilient journeys of Black girls and women. In lyrical, linked stories, Sutherland traces the lives of mothers working abroad as housekeepers and nannies, and the children they left behind.
From lush island childhoods marked by absence and community, to the cold, alienating spaces of Canadian cities, Layaway Child captures the complexity of growing up between worlds. A mother, newly arrived in Montreal, is kept from speaking to her daughters by her own mother’s misguided attempt to help her let go of home. A schoolgirl becomes a spectacle under the gaze of white classmates. A young girl’s curiosity about the cosmos collides with the confusion of puberty. Sutherland brings deep compassion and sharp insight to each moment, revealing both the beauty of island life and the harshness of immigration’s toll.
Layaway Child is a luminous debut short story collection by award-winning writer Chanel Sutherland that explores the emotional landscapes of Caribbean families fractured by migration, especially the harrowing yet resilient journeys of Black girls and women. In lyrical, linked stories, Sutherland traces the lives of mothers working abroad as housekeepers and nannies, and the children they left behind.
From lush island childhoods marked by absence and community, to the cold, alienating spaces of Canadian cities, Layaway Child captures the complexity of growing up between worlds. A mother, newly arrived in Montreal, is kept from speaking to her daughters by her own mother’s misguided attempt to help her let go of home. A schoolgirl becomes a spectacle under the gaze of white classmates. A young girl’s curiosity about the cosmos collides with the confusion of puberty. Sutherland brings deep compassion and sharp insight to each moment, revealing both the beauty of island life and the harshness of immigration’s toll.
296 pages, Paperback
Published May 12, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 27, 2026
Layaway Child by Chanel Sutherland feels like sitting at the feet of our mothers and grandmothers, listening to the stories they carried quietly in their bodies for years. These stories are tender and devastating all at once, capturing the in-between-ness of girlhood, migration, memory, and what it means to belong to two places at the same time. As Sutherland writes, “Time moves differently when you're trapped between two places; here and there, now and before.” And truly, this entire collection lives in that space between before and after.
The stories are vastly different, but together they create a powerful sense of community. They revolve around immigration, racism, coming of age, love, colourism, and survival, while honouring the lives that once existed in St. Vincent.
What stayed with me most is how deeply this book loves African-Caribbean women. It is a love story to our mothers who had to leave, our grandmothers who raised the layaway children left behind, and the generations of women trying to hold families together through stories, sacrifice, and hope.
There is pain here, the pain of separation, of realizing your mother is a stranger, of wounded people raising wounded children but there is also softness, resilience, innocence, and longing woven through every page. Chanel Sutherland captures both the optimism of youth and the quiet exhaustion of adults simply trying to survive with such honesty and care.
This is the kind of book that settles into your spirit slowly and stays there.
The stories are vastly different, but together they create a powerful sense of community. They revolve around immigration, racism, coming of age, love, colourism, and survival, while honouring the lives that once existed in St. Vincent.
What stayed with me most is how deeply this book loves African-Caribbean women. It is a love story to our mothers who had to leave, our grandmothers who raised the layaway children left behind, and the generations of women trying to hold families together through stories, sacrifice, and hope.
There is pain here, the pain of separation, of realizing your mother is a stranger, of wounded people raising wounded children but there is also softness, resilience, innocence, and longing woven through every page. Chanel Sutherland captures both the optimism of youth and the quiet exhaustion of adults simply trying to survive with such honesty and care.
This is the kind of book that settles into your spirit slowly and stays there.
May 18, 2026
Chanel Sutherland's debut, LAYAWAY CHILD, is a surprising, thoughtful book of stories about Caribbean women seeking a better life in Canada, and the children left behind, put on layaway, waiting to be collected. This is a book with a lot of heart and soul to it, rich in experiences and personal reflections, and the writing sings with truths.
There's an interconnectedness to the stories that brings a feeling of community, and this is reinforced by the book's structure. The first story cleverly welcomes the reader to the immigrant experience with the rarely used second-person perspective—“you” become part of the story, entering a cold winter in Montreal, an unfamiliar world, and your new job taking care of someone else's child while your own are a million miles away, wondering if you'll ever come back. It's a heartbreaking first story, but it's the perfect gateway to the very real world Sutherland has conjured. From there it shifts to different first-person characters, and even some third-person narratives, and the observant reader is rewarded with references and names that clue you in on each story’s place in the book’s overall timeline. You'll ride a rollercoaster of emotions, each tale offering up new and often difficult experiences, sometimes even directly continuing something from a previous story. The title story in particular brings beautiful payoff with how it concludes. The final story mirrors the opening tale, turning the pair into bookends, and instead of “you,” the perspective switches to “we,” and as a group “we” share different stories from back home.
LAYAWAY CHILD is a book with many layers. It reveals itself, petal by petal, like a rare and delicate flower going into bloom, every page and every story offering something beautiful to ponder and savour. Sutherland’s descriptive, introspective writing is compassionate, sensitive, and emotionally rewarding, and although it isn't necessarily written for young adults, she's written a book that could easily be read and studied as part of the curriculum in Canadian high schools. LAYAWAY CHILD brings a much needed perspective to Canadian literature.
There's an interconnectedness to the stories that brings a feeling of community, and this is reinforced by the book's structure. The first story cleverly welcomes the reader to the immigrant experience with the rarely used second-person perspective—“you” become part of the story, entering a cold winter in Montreal, an unfamiliar world, and your new job taking care of someone else's child while your own are a million miles away, wondering if you'll ever come back. It's a heartbreaking first story, but it's the perfect gateway to the very real world Sutherland has conjured. From there it shifts to different first-person characters, and even some third-person narratives, and the observant reader is rewarded with references and names that clue you in on each story’s place in the book’s overall timeline. You'll ride a rollercoaster of emotions, each tale offering up new and often difficult experiences, sometimes even directly continuing something from a previous story. The title story in particular brings beautiful payoff with how it concludes. The final story mirrors the opening tale, turning the pair into bookends, and instead of “you,” the perspective switches to “we,” and as a group “we” share different stories from back home.
LAYAWAY CHILD is a book with many layers. It reveals itself, petal by petal, like a rare and delicate flower going into bloom, every page and every story offering something beautiful to ponder and savour. Sutherland’s descriptive, introspective writing is compassionate, sensitive, and emotionally rewarding, and although it isn't necessarily written for young adults, she's written a book that could easily be read and studied as part of the curriculum in Canadian high schools. LAYAWAY CHILD brings a much needed perspective to Canadian literature.
June 25, 2026
The Most Beautiful Ache
These stories were gorgeous, and agonizing, and melodic, and sharp, and utterly unforgettable.
The mother in me ached reading many of them, but they were all the more powerful for the feeling. This isn’t a one-sitting read, but it’s absolutely worth it.
These stories were gorgeous, and agonizing, and melodic, and sharp, and utterly unforgettable.
The mother in me ached reading many of them, but they were all the more powerful for the feeling. This isn’t a one-sitting read, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
“I just want to breathe without feeling like I’m stealing air.”
“Time moves differently when you're trapped between two places—here and there, now and before.”
This last quote from “Giants” will stay with me for as long as the story does – forever. A young girl walking to the Metro stalked by two police officers driving at the same speed she walks, suggesting she should do as she’s told. Do as your told, words that float above Chanel Sutherland’s stories in LAYAWAY CHILD, from opening stories where mothers, teachers and bullies remind little girls how they must be in the world, to stories where police officers, uncles, bullies and boyfriends tell girls they should obey, listen or do what’s best for the men, and the white people, around them. A reminder that women and girls, especially black girls, exist at the mercy, and judgment, of others.
The in-between-ness of girlhood, and the before and after of lives that once existed in St. Vincent, with “something of who we were” still there to welcome them home should they ever return – “Layaway Child”, the titular story close to the end of the collection, book-ends Juliette’s opening story, “Beneath The Softness Of Snow” where the choice to move to Canada isn’t a choice, really, but obliging a hopeful, better life. The before and after of getting your first period. The before and after of abortion. The before and after of sexual abuse. The before and after of a girlhood spent trying to breathe through the worst things that happen. The women and girls in Chanel Sutherland’s collection aren’t hopelessly trapped in that in-between-ness, they come alive here. And in the final story, “Descend,” we’re reminded that black women and girls, the boys and the men – slaves drowning “deep in the belly of the ship” – don’t exist in the murmuring quiet of rewritten histories, but they “are still here, still breathing, still alive in our stories,” stories like Chanel Sutherland’s.
This is brilliant writing, plotted and paced perfectly in stories that take us from girlhood to womenhood and all the in-betweens, LAYAWAY CHILD is going to be one of those short story collections we talk about for years.
“Time moves differently when you're trapped between two places—here and there, now and before.”
This last quote from “Giants” will stay with me for as long as the story does – forever. A young girl walking to the Metro stalked by two police officers driving at the same speed she walks, suggesting she should do as she’s told. Do as your told, words that float above Chanel Sutherland’s stories in LAYAWAY CHILD, from opening stories where mothers, teachers and bullies remind little girls how they must be in the world, to stories where police officers, uncles, bullies and boyfriends tell girls they should obey, listen or do what’s best for the men, and the white people, around them. A reminder that women and girls, especially black girls, exist at the mercy, and judgment, of others.
The in-between-ness of girlhood, and the before and after of lives that once existed in St. Vincent, with “something of who we were” still there to welcome them home should they ever return – “Layaway Child”, the titular story close to the end of the collection, book-ends Juliette’s opening story, “Beneath The Softness Of Snow” where the choice to move to Canada isn’t a choice, really, but obliging a hopeful, better life. The before and after of getting your first period. The before and after of abortion. The before and after of sexual abuse. The before and after of a girlhood spent trying to breathe through the worst things that happen. The women and girls in Chanel Sutherland’s collection aren’t hopelessly trapped in that in-between-ness, they come alive here. And in the final story, “Descend,” we’re reminded that black women and girls, the boys and the men – slaves drowning “deep in the belly of the ship” – don’t exist in the murmuring quiet of rewritten histories, but they “are still here, still breathing, still alive in our stories,” stories like Chanel Sutherland’s.
This is brilliant writing, plotted and paced perfectly in stories that take us from girlhood to womenhood and all the in-betweens, LAYAWAY CHILD is going to be one of those short story collections we talk about for years.
October 28, 2026
“I came here.” I said. “And now I just want to breathe without feeling like I’m stealing air. I want to leave without explaining why. I want to be more than a body that things happen to.”
Sutherland did not disappoint when it came to this short story collection. Based on migration, colorism, displacement, sacrifices and grief. Layaway Child delves into the deep rooted emotions of women who have their lives uprooted.
From mothers navigating and caring for the children of others while grieving their own that they’ve left behind to secure a better life in this land that they heard was flowing.
To children that by the time they’re reunited with their parents feel an otherness, not only in the schools where their skin color makes them a walking target. But also in their homes where the relationships they’ve once had with their mothers is fractured due to absence.
Sutherland’s writing reels you in, while also making you feel. For the mother making a hard choice for her children’s future. The grandparents trying their best but at times still failing their grandkids. And the children who wear displacement like skin they are unable to shed.
Her short stories don’t dress up the realities of sacrificing. They address the cost of said sacrifice.
Sutherland did not disappoint when it came to this short story collection. Based on migration, colorism, displacement, sacrifices and grief. Layaway Child delves into the deep rooted emotions of women who have their lives uprooted.
From mothers navigating and caring for the children of others while grieving their own that they’ve left behind to secure a better life in this land that they heard was flowing.
To children that by the time they’re reunited with their parents feel an otherness, not only in the schools where their skin color makes them a walking target. But also in their homes where the relationships they’ve once had with their mothers is fractured due to absence.
Sutherland’s writing reels you in, while also making you feel. For the mother making a hard choice for her children’s future. The grandparents trying their best but at times still failing their grandkids. And the children who wear displacement like skin they are unable to shed.
Her short stories don’t dress up the realities of sacrificing. They address the cost of said sacrifice.
June 21, 2026
4.5, rounded up.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.
This set of short stories has so many connections between each other, they almost read as separate chapters of the same book. It is so well written and the endings of many chapters are left in a place to allow readers to make their own determination.
As the immigrants from St. Vincent work to make a better life, the children are the ones that must adapt.
The sense of community is so clear here as the stories highlight strength and resilience within the community in the face of puberty, life changes, loss, racism, immigration. One interesting recurring idea that is alive today is the judgements made within the black community based on how dark they are.
Although these stories do not represent joy, they do represent optimism.
The one oddity of this book is the last story. This story does not seem to fit. Certainly in the sense of how Africans came to be in the Caribbean, it could fit. But, the themes within the book makes this story the duck out of water. Having said that, it is an amazing story, highlighted by her awesome storytelling so I can live with it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.
This set of short stories has so many connections between each other, they almost read as separate chapters of the same book. It is so well written and the endings of many chapters are left in a place to allow readers to make their own determination.
As the immigrants from St. Vincent work to make a better life, the children are the ones that must adapt.
The sense of community is so clear here as the stories highlight strength and resilience within the community in the face of puberty, life changes, loss, racism, immigration. One interesting recurring idea that is alive today is the judgements made within the black community based on how dark they are.
Although these stories do not represent joy, they do represent optimism.
The one oddity of this book is the last story. This story does not seem to fit. Certainly in the sense of how Africans came to be in the Caribbean, it could fit. But, the themes within the book makes this story the duck out of water. Having said that, it is an amazing story, highlighted by her awesome storytelling so I can live with it.
September 26, 2026
As a Vincentian, I am immensely proud that this spectacular body of art is the product of one of our own. Not only does Chanel Sutherland creates each short story to stand on its own, she took it up a notch by intertwining a few of them, giving the reader different point of fews. It was also refreshing to read and see names of familiar places and traditions in St Vincent. Let's talk about representation!
The stories all captivate you leaving you pondering on the characters and themes , but just enough that still keeps you in a state of awe.
As a layaway child, I saw myself in many of the characters. I was indeed a granny's girl, still is to this day.
It feels good to know that there are Caribbean authors out there who see the need to bring light to the issue of immigration and explore how it affects the children who were left behind. For example, we are forced to adapt to environments that we detest and internalize emotions too big for our child mind to understand and process. Thank you Chanel Sutherland for this well written book. From one layaway child to another, thank you.
The stories all captivate you leaving you pondering on the characters and themes , but just enough that still keeps you in a state of awe.
As a layaway child, I saw myself in many of the characters. I was indeed a granny's girl, still is to this day.
It feels good to know that there are Caribbean authors out there who see the need to bring light to the issue of immigration and explore how it affects the children who were left behind. For example, we are forced to adapt to environments that we detest and internalize emotions too big for our child mind to understand and process. Thank you Chanel Sutherland for this well written book. From one layaway child to another, thank you.
September 17, 2026
This is one of the most difficult reviews I have written, as I want to do justice to the beauty and power of this book. The writing is so beautiful—a magnificent blend of prose and poetry—that it feels lyrical in its expression of personal emotion. I frequently found myself pausing to reflect on why this book resonated with me so deeply, and I realized it is the author's extraordinary writing style. If I were to write a book, this is the exact style I would aspire to use.
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Chanel Sutherland's debut short story collection explores the Caribbean migration experience, specifically through the lives of girls and women. The portrayal of the mother-daughter dynamic is the focal point, making this a must-read for women and their daughters. I also highly recommend it to men, as it offers valuable insight into the experiences of the women around us. I rarely make the 'must-read' statement; however, this one truly deserves it!
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Thank you so much to whoever recommended this book to me! Thank you Chanel Sutherland for writing this book!
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Chanel Sutherland's debut short story collection explores the Caribbean migration experience, specifically through the lives of girls and women. The portrayal of the mother-daughter dynamic is the focal point, making this a must-read for women and their daughters. I also highly recommend it to men, as it offers valuable insight into the experiences of the women around us. I rarely make the 'must-read' statement; however, this one truly deserves it!
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Thank you so much to whoever recommended this book to me! Thank you Chanel Sutherland for writing this book!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Set between Canada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, these stories are rich in themes of immigration, love, family trauma and nostalgia
In Chanel Sutherland’s LAYAWAY CHILD we are taken to St. Vincent and the Grenadine and Canada, we meet mothers who are leaving their homeland for a “better” life and with that, they also leave their children behind. The stories are vastly different, but all are deeply moving with complex characters navigating difficult circumstances. Some of the stories are interconnected, while others are stand alone- they all revolve about themes of immigration, racism, coming of age and love.
These stories tell of the Caribbean immigrant experience, but also what it was like for the children who were left behind. Sutherland pens a great collection that you won’t be able to put down.
In Chanel Sutherland’s LAYAWAY CHILD we are taken to St. Vincent and the Grenadine and Canada, we meet mothers who are leaving their homeland for a “better” life and with that, they also leave their children behind. The stories are vastly different, but all are deeply moving with complex characters navigating difficult circumstances. Some of the stories are interconnected, while others are stand alone- they all revolve about themes of immigration, racism, coming of age and love.
These stories tell of the Caribbean immigrant experience, but also what it was like for the children who were left behind. Sutherland pens a great collection that you won’t be able to put down.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I can think of less than a handful of fiction that depicts the Montreal neighbourhood of Côte des Neiges, where I also lived for nearly a decade, so getting to read stories set there was a joy. I also enjoyed how many of the stories had recurring characters, allowing readers to learn more about characters at different points in their lives. Sutherland's depictions of complex mother/daughter relationships, domestic labour, race, and colourism are tender and compassionate.
The stories that stood out the most were the ones that explored resentment, shame, and guilt, such as "Majesty" and “Little Donkey Have Big Ears.”
The stories that stood out the most were the ones that explored resentment, shame, and guilt, such as "Majesty" and “Little Donkey Have Big Ears.”
August 9, 2026
Stories of not belonging and of being different touched me. The 'protagonist' in all the stories (a young girl, new to everything and transplanted to a yotally different world) reminded me of fear and ridicule and tyring to figure out how different I seemed to be compared to other kids at school. It also reminded me of how cruel some kids can be, whether intentional or not. I still want to find that boy ( now a man, I suppose) who tormented me at recesses, calling me names and killing off my self-confidence. It took me MANY years to find my self-confidence. That bastard!
Luckily I came through it all, just like the characters in these stories. Be strong, eveyone!!
Luckily I came through it all, just like the characters in these stories. Be strong, eveyone!!
September 17, 2026
Bigotry. Racism. Colourism. Poverty. Bigotry. Racism. Colourism. Poverty. Bigotry. Racism. Colourism. Poverty. Bigotry. Racism. Colourism. Poverty.
These are the legacy of colonization.
The stories in Layaway Child live among the legacy of colonization.
These are the legacy of colonization.
The stories in Layaway Child live among the legacy of colonization.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Beautiful. Delicate. Nuanced and so so worth your time.
June 20, 2026
Brilliant collection of short stories.
Highly recommended read.
Highly recommended read.
July 19, 2026
Spellbinding.
August 10, 2026
Absolutely stunning. Sutherland is a master of short stories and this collection is achingly beautiful. Each one I felt instantly connected to the characters. A real treasure.
October 4, 2026
9/10 These powerful stories captured me right away. Loved her writing style. I learned so much about the sacrifices the Caribbean women made looking for a better life in Canada.
July 1, 2026
I enjoyed these short stories and even though they were separate the author did keep and interconnection which did not leave you lost, traversing between Canada and St Vincent as the location.
August 6, 2026
I was gifted a copy of this book by House of Anansi Press. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Girlhood. Motherhood. Sacrifice. Humiliation.
Sutherland’s prose is luscious and poignant — sinking deep into your bones. I was thoroughly impressed by the careful connection of each short story and the way the narrative weight carried through so evenly. Not once did this debut collection ever feel fragmented.
If Layaway Child is any indication of Sutherland’s talent as a writer, I can only imagine how I’ll feel reading a full-length novel.
Girlhood. Motherhood. Sacrifice. Humiliation.
Sutherland’s prose is luscious and poignant — sinking deep into your bones. I was thoroughly impressed by the careful connection of each short story and the way the narrative weight carried through so evenly. Not once did this debut collection ever feel fragmented.
If Layaway Child is any indication of Sutherland’s talent as a writer, I can only imagine how I’ll feel reading a full-length novel.
June 6, 2026
A collection of connected short stories about mothers and daughters, immigrants from St. Vincent to Canada, and how they experience their changes in life and place. Some of the writing is affecting and some moments are moving, others are much less successful (the events of the stories often focus on the first, most obvious choice, and the writing can be a bit flowery), but it's a quick, very interesting read.
And I'm taking the Pangram accusation that the final story, the critically-lauded "Descend," was written by AI with a HUGE grain of salt (AI-detection is a pretty imprecise field, Pangram is trying to advertise their tools), but in terms of this collection it doesn't help that that's the one story in this book unconnected with the others, and very much unlike them in terms of structure, subject, and style.
I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
And I'm taking the Pangram accusation that the final story, the critically-lauded "Descend," was written by AI with a HUGE grain of salt (AI-detection is a pretty imprecise field, Pangram is trying to advertise their tools), but in terms of this collection it doesn't help that that's the one story in this book unconnected with the others, and very much unlike them in terms of structure, subject, and style.
I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
What to say about a book that comes into your life as the thing you always needed and feels like it has always belonged? This book, by Vincentian-Canadian writer Chanel Sutherland, is a love story to African-Caribbean women, to our mothers, our grandmothers, our ancestors. It’s a book about migration, about the mothers who had to leave their children to provide for them, the grandmothers who had to raise those layaway children knowing that some day, they would be sent to their mothers. It’s a book about holding the family together through stories and hope when all generations of the family can never be together because of forces much bigger than us. In this book is the pain of colourism, of realizing your own mother is a stranger, of being damaged by damaged people who are still only children. Chanel Sutherland so clearly captures the innocence and optimism of youth and the determined resignation of adults just trying to hold it together and get through the days.
The opening story, Beneath the Softness of Snow, won the CBC short story prize, deservedly so. The snow is deceptively soft and beautiful, like the carpets in the homes of the wealthy women who hire nannies from the Caribbean. Our mothers leave home believing that life in Canada will be softer, easier. But underneath, the snow is hard and cold. The floors under the carpets are too. Underneath the material luxury are years of missing their own babies and a lifetime of missing home.
The last story, Descend, won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It too, takes us beneath something. That is what the whole collection does - it looks underneath the things we take for granted. I won’t call this a “linked” collection of short stories because I don’t like that term - all items in a collection are linked. But the same characters and places recur - the Vincentian village named Purity that is both idyllic and stifling, peaceful and terrifying. The domestic workers - Black women - who are so often invisible, but Sutherland sees them. She gives voice to our foremothers who were so rarely heard.
Then we get to Descend and we are no longer in the world of domestic workers and their children and families. We are in the hold of a slave ship that is sinking at sea, its enslaved, chained passengers telling each other stories as they face death. We are descending into the horrors of transatlantic slavery. Why is this story here? Because it is that trauma, that history of enslavement that caused everything else that was to happen. Enslavement, and the way it ended, without the enslaved receiving any compensation or skills training, impoverished the islands of our heritage and forced people to migrate, looking for a better life. Enslavement broke family bonds, made it seem impossible for a woman to keep her children. It was the first wound of many, and Chanel Sutherland writes all these wounds so beautifully.
The amazing thing about short stories is that you can read just a little at a time, which is good if, like me, you bawl your entire way through this book because it makes you feel so seen, and it begins to stitch together those wounds of longing and abandonment. Sutherland is a staggeringly talented writer and I will eagerly gobble up every word she serves.
The opening story, Beneath the Softness of Snow, won the CBC short story prize, deservedly so. The snow is deceptively soft and beautiful, like the carpets in the homes of the wealthy women who hire nannies from the Caribbean. Our mothers leave home believing that life in Canada will be softer, easier. But underneath, the snow is hard and cold. The floors under the carpets are too. Underneath the material luxury are years of missing their own babies and a lifetime of missing home.
The last story, Descend, won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. It too, takes us beneath something. That is what the whole collection does - it looks underneath the things we take for granted. I won’t call this a “linked” collection of short stories because I don’t like that term - all items in a collection are linked. But the same characters and places recur - the Vincentian village named Purity that is both idyllic and stifling, peaceful and terrifying. The domestic workers - Black women - who are so often invisible, but Sutherland sees them. She gives voice to our foremothers who were so rarely heard.
Then we get to Descend and we are no longer in the world of domestic workers and their children and families. We are in the hold of a slave ship that is sinking at sea, its enslaved, chained passengers telling each other stories as they face death. We are descending into the horrors of transatlantic slavery. Why is this story here? Because it is that trauma, that history of enslavement that caused everything else that was to happen. Enslavement, and the way it ended, without the enslaved receiving any compensation or skills training, impoverished the islands of our heritage and forced people to migrate, looking for a better life. Enslavement broke family bonds, made it seem impossible for a woman to keep her children. It was the first wound of many, and Chanel Sutherland writes all these wounds so beautifully.
The amazing thing about short stories is that you can read just a little at a time, which is good if, like me, you bawl your entire way through this book because it makes you feel so seen, and it begins to stitch together those wounds of longing and abandonment. Sutherland is a staggeringly talented writer and I will eagerly gobble up every word she serves.
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