Tide Running

by Oonya Kempadoo

The Caribbean island of Tobago is the setting for Oonya Kempadoo's second novel, Tide Running. The story's narrators are handsome, brooding Cliff, a reserved 20-year-old living in Plymouth, one of the roughest towns on the island, and Bella, a mixed-race woman who comes to live on Tobago with her English husband and young son.

While Cliff and his brother Ossie live in unemployed boredom and poverty with their mother, sister and baby niece (fathers and responsible adult males do not figure here), Bella and Peter--a high-flying corporate lawyer--live in a David Hockney-inspired architect-designed home fit for a film star. Surprisingly, an unlikely friendship develops. Although innocent at first, with the brothers happy to hang out at the house watching videos, or on day trips to the island¹s beaches, something darker, and unsettling, begins to surface. Street-wise, cheeky Ossie takes a back seat as his quieter brother slowly lowers his guard. Before long, Bella finds herself drawn to Cliff's striking beauty, and a sexual tension, charged with excitement and danger, hangs in the steamy Tobagan air. Unwittingly, though, it seems that Bella has unleashed a dangerous undercurrent and can only watch, helpless, as the backwash gathers speed and events spiral towards the inevitable.

Kempadoo has not only switched continents for Tide Running--her highly acclaimed debut Buxton Spice was set in Guyana--she has also changed tone, from the flowing exuberance of childhood sexual awakenings to an altogether more serious, troublesome tale of trust and responsibilities. If you can cut through the challenging Tobagan patois­-this is not a book to be rushed--Tide Running is an illuminating, if disturbing tale of modern-day Caribbean life and the repercussions of Western culture. --Carey Green

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

201 pages, Hardcover

First published May 25, 2001

About the author

Oonya Kempadoo is a writer who was born in Sussex, England in 1966 of Guyanese parents. She was brought up in Guyana and has since lived in Europe and various islands in the Caribbean.

Her first novel, Buxton Spice, was published to great acclaim in 1998, and was nominated for the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second book, Tide Running (Picador, 2001), set in Plymouth, Tobago, is the story of young brothers Cliff and Ossie.

Oonya Kempadoo has studied art in Amsterdam and has lived in Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and now lives in Grenada.

She was named a Great Talent for the Twenty-First Century by the Orange Prize judges and is a winner of the Casa de las Americas Prize.

Reviews

[Tanya Patrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took a while for this book to sort of get to the point. The first few chapters is just descriptions, and so I put it down. Once I picked it up again, I enjoyed seeing how the story progressed - but after about the middle, it didn't seem like the story was going anywhere. And that's where I think this book fails. It's also difficult to read if you don't understand the dialect.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this novel is a challenge due primarily to the tough Caribbean dialect that dominates the narrative voice, the story possesses a raw beauty, and it addresses harsh truths about society and class. The central plot explores the limits to which love, lust, and trust can be stretched. The story begins with lavish descriptions of Tobago and the sea. We meet Cliff Dunstan and his close-knit family as they struggle daily to get by in one of Plymouth’s rougher neighborhoods. In particular, Cliff’s mother and older sister are trying to keep Cliff and his brother Ossi from gravitating towards trouble. When the boys befriend Peter and Bella, a wealthy Trinidadian couple with a vacation home on Tobago, the reality of everyday adversity is temporarily forgotten as the brothers are invited into their home. Attractions soon flare, and the couple invites Cliff to enter a mutual love triangle with them. At this point, all walls between them are torn down. What is at risk? How much trust can be offered? Before long, the couple notices money disappearing. Next, their car is stolen, only to find it strangely returned. Is Cliff to blame? To what extent does his upbringing or the environment mold who he is? When two worlds of great difference collide, who is left intact and who in pieces? Kempadoo expertly brings up a multitude of eye-opening issues, as she probes the intricacy of her characters’ lives. My only criticism with this book is Kempadoo’s decision to employ a prose style that relied exclusively on dialect and patois phrasings. I was engrossed in the relationships and events, but I wanted to gain more momentum with the text and story. Instead, I had to read very slowly and reread certain sections to gain meaning. The many perspectives and voices also demand close attention to detail. Nonetheless, this novel has a hypnotic effect in how it is rooted in the authenticity of culture and life. The ending is particularly heartfelt with the emotions it generates.

[Gigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this for my postcolonial lit class and wrote a critical essay on it. at first, it was tough to read, because it’s written in a distinct caribbean dialect. but overall i really enjoyed the book and how it critiqued the effects of colonialism into the modern era.

[Suzanne Bhagan]

This story explores the darker side of Tobago life, especially the relationship between locals and visitors. It follows the experiences of Plymouth boy, Cliff, who embarks on a sexual relationship with a rich, privileged couple staying in a vacation home there. The book raises questions of race, class, and privilege and explores the stereotypes beneath the facade of the relationship. It's heavy on Trinbagonian Creole so take your time with it.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, there was no point to it, it's rambling and written from a Jamaican dialect but I think it adds to the charm. I've never read anything like it before.

[Virginie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the world in books: Guyana.

[JanJan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took a long time to get to the story. Then didn't really go anywhere. It was more about descriptions than story.

[Blaise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book and the writing style was addictive, but I felt the ending left a little to be desired.

I felt like I learnt quite a lot about Tobago 🇹🇹.

[Millie Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have quite a lot of questions about this novel. On the one hand it's a really interesting look at wealth disparity in Tobago, on the other it's quite problematic.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and different, troubling at times. Would recommend.

[Racquel]

DNF at 6%. Probably will pick back up later.

[Auke · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story takes its sweet time and doesn't really go anywhere. The thick Caribbean accents also make for tougher reading. There is something appealing about it, but not highly recommended.

[Georgie Wardall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cliff’s narration is the one that’s direct, immediate, and alive, even though it’s a difficult Tobagonian dialect. Bella’s, a familiar native English lexicon, is stifled and remote. And that’s the point of the novel - Cliff serves to demonstrate the identity and agency of Tobago, while Bella sees Cliff and Tobago as static items that belong to the American emporium of consumables subject to her buying power, and it’s this disparity in their shared experience that makes this book tragic. Tide Running is about excoticism, what necessarily happens when Bella and Peter invite Cliff in without proper recognition of his agency, and the infliction of American capitalist values on a country immiserated and disenfranchised by colonialism.

[Giselda · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways, I really enjoyed this book--particularly the evocative setting. But the dialect and prose interfered with my understanding of the plot and characters, and that was frustrating. I probably read it too fast.

[Mary B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know exactly how I feel about this story. I felt a very strong pull to keep reading because I thought there would be something else to connect me with the many characters there was a sense of disconnection through to the end.

[Jonathan Billings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this hard going with its mix of regular English and the local Tobagonian idiom. Not sure I really enjoyed it as it didn't seem to really be going anywhere. I'd certainly not be in a hurry to pick another by the same author but if given a copy I'm sure I'd work through it.

[Mark Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best and most accurate book I've ever read that's set in the Caribbean. Having lived in the region for almost twenty years, I found it both charming and alarming but most of all, beautiful and honest. Love it.

[Bernadette Mercado]

Beautiful.