Motherland: And Other Stories

by Wandeka Gayle

Wandeka Gayle’s mostly young black women protagonists win our hearts as risk-taking, adventurous explorers of the white world, away from home, which at some point has been Jamaica. They include Roxanne, who starts work in a care home in London and strikes up a rapport with a depressed old man who used to be a writer; Ayo, who heads to college in Louisiana and fights off the internalised voice of her godly, tambourine-beating aunt to begin an affair with an engaging, slightly older white man; there’s Sophia, who comes to work in Georgia and struggles to know whether her inability to engage more deeply with other people is really about racism or, rather, a more personally embedded reluctance. What characterises these women is a readiness to encounter, an attempt to get to grips with the oddities and strangeness of the white world, and like Ayo, to engage with it, whilst being pretty sure that Forrest “could never understand her world.” They take risks and are sometimes forced to pay for their courage. Other characters have to confront situations of their own making, like Angela returning from the USA for her mother’s funeral, trying to find some point of contact with the now almost grown children she abandoned, or Melba who, after her husband dies, must confront the silence she has permitted in their marriage. The situations that Wandeka Gayle writes about are the stuff of everyday life, but she writes with such an empathy, grace, and acute psychological understanding that one cannot but engage with her characters. There's an easy democracy of inwardness with them, too; she is as much at home with the ill-educated, apparently ambitionless, and illiterate as with a sophisticated lecturer like Michel meeting up with an old flame at a literary conference.

Genres: Short Stories

182 pages, Paperback

Published January 28, 2021

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A debut collection of short stories you are going to want to have on your reading list!

Motherland is Wandeka Gayle debut collection of short stories that tells stories of Jamaicans living at home and abroad. While this is a debut collection, the stories feel really strong and leaves you feeling emotional and wanting the characters all to win. Gayle writes fresh characters and situation, this is not your usual reads and I loved that about the collection.
There are twelve collections in the short stories, my favourites were:
Motherland
Finding Joy
The Wish
Help Wanted
Melba
The Blackout
Reunion

Yes, I know, I do this ALLL the time, I talk about my favorite stories in the collection and that’s basically me re-writing the table of contents. This is proof that the author did an amazing job because so many of the stories slapped so hard.

We meet characters who are just leaving Jamaica to live in the US and England. This is their first time away from home and they must now carve out a new identity. We meet characters who are still hanging on to a dream that they won’t give up on, a Reunion that could have gone any way… and a woman looking for Help who will not fall in love with her husband.

So much happens in this collection but it is well crafted. I really wish more persons would read this collection because it is insanely good!

[Jherane Patmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diasporac writing is a staple for contemporary Caribbean Literature, but Wandeka Gayle departs from convention with this collection of, mostly, women taking risks, having unexpected everyday adventures, and finding their way as immigrants in their brave new worlds. Wandeka writes with deep emotional empathy that evokes reflection, frustration and delight in a skillful way that all comes together in a cohesive collection. With characters that are equally diverse and complex as the themes the writer tries to address, this book is Caribbean release for 2021 that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

[Alicja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I brought this book because I was really excited about the premise of it. I really wanted this to be a good book and I really wanted to like it, however I found myself being disappointed by it from the ending of the first story.

I have read the book and as much as I could identify with immigrants and their stories in different countries I have to say the book left me quite disappointed. The stories were overall very short, which meant that by the time you got to know one set of characters another person’s story started.

In the beginning I was hoping the stories were all related somehow, since the names of the people were suite similar, but then I found that their stories were completely different so you found yourself jumping from one person’s life to another even though they have never officially met. I found that aspect distracting from the overall stories and experiences of those people.

[Kelly Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motherland journeys the reader beyond the carefully paved resort byways, to the twists and turns of less traveled Jamaican roads, where Bob Marley fades into mento and calypso, as Gayle unveils each of her Jamaican monuments. Go there.

See full review at The Rumpus
https://therumpus.net/2021/06/motherl...

[MariaR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of short stories.

[Kevin Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed every story in this book!!!