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Lives: Whole and Otherwise
Fiction. African American Studies. These stories of triumph and despair present a gallery of characters, Caribbean immigrants struggling against the odds, as they make their way through the maze of urban life. Set in Montreal, LIVES breaks the stereotypes to give us a side of Canada rarely acknowledged. Mary Fellows is a sex-worker organizing a demonstration on St Catherine Street; Margaret is on a perpetual quest for a suitable man, her latest folly a suave, much younger man she brought over from Jamaica; Greta, a domestic help, proudly holds up her son's high school diploma; but can he read it? Lives adds to Thomas's already considerable reputation as a chronicler of black life in Montreal.
- GenresShort Stories
160 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2010
22 people want to read
About the author
H. Nigel Thomas
15 books23 followersH Nigel Thomas was born in St Vincent. He attended university in Montreal and for ten years was a teacher with the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal. He is now professor of literature at Laval University. His published works include the novel Spirits in the Dark, which was short-listed for the 1994 Quebec Writers’ Federation Hugh MacLennan Fiction Award; How Loud Can the Village Cock Crow, short fiction; and Moving through Darkness, poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 28, 2020
Amazing intro into a world I have not experienced, plagued with racial problems, but also sins of most of mankind. All written in a very nice manner. I have discovered a new Writer.
October 9, 2021
The struggle, resilience, and attitude of Caribbean migrants really came through each of these stories.
'The seed must die for the seedling to grow, but why must it be so?'
The title of this collection brilliantly captures the stories told on these pages. Stories if immigrants who have to face the Man, a society that tries to grind them with racism and beauracracy. But it also tells of their tenacity and spirit in pushing against boundaries built to keep them in 'their place' or obstacles meant to hobble them.
Thomas of course tells these stories with a Caribbean voice, the distinct tone that enlivens the narrative, whether it is the mother proud of her graduate only to find that he might not have been getting a rounded graduation, the sex worker who uses her sly wit to persuade connections both spiritual and secular to organize a march for sex worker expression and protection or the gay man searching for himself and facing rejection from family and the church which causes immense mental strain.
'The seed must die for the seedling to grow, but why must it be so?'
The title of this collection brilliantly captures the stories told on these pages. Stories if immigrants who have to face the Man, a society that tries to grind them with racism and beauracracy. But it also tells of their tenacity and spirit in pushing against boundaries built to keep them in 'their place' or obstacles meant to hobble them.
Thomas of course tells these stories with a Caribbean voice, the distinct tone that enlivens the narrative, whether it is the mother proud of her graduate only to find that he might not have been getting a rounded graduation, the sex worker who uses her sly wit to persuade connections both spiritual and secular to organize a march for sex worker expression and protection or the gay man searching for himself and facing rejection from family and the church which causes immense mental strain.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews