Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Bentađ
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272 pages
Kara Davis is a girl caught in the middle â of her Canadian nationality and her desire to be a âtrueâ Jamaican, of her mother and grandmotherâs rages and life lessons, of having to avoid being thought of as too âfaasâ or too âquietâ or too âboldâ or too âsoft.â Set in âLittle Jamaica,â Torontoâs Eglinton West neighbourhood, Kara moves from girlhood to the threshold of adulthood, from elementary school to high school graduation, in these twelve interconnected stories. We see her on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pigâs head in her great auntâs freezer; in junior high, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmotherâs house, trying to cope with the ongoing battles between her unyielding grandparents.
A rich and unforgettable portrait of growing up between worlds, Frying Plantain shows how, in one charged moment, friendship and love can turn to enmity and hate, well-meaning protection can become control, and teasing play can turn to something much darker. In her brilliantly incisive debut, Zalika Reid-Benta artfully depicts the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation Canadians and first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity and predominately white society.
PUBLISHER: House of Anansi (June 2019)
FORMAT: Paperback
