Broken Gourds
by Beresford McLean. Anancy Books, pp. 353, $15.95
A Review by M. Stephanie Browne
Beresford McLean is a gifted folklorist with a keen eye for storytelling who has spun an interesting and intriguing tale from contiguous slivers of Jamaican history and folklore. McLean was born in Jamaica. Years later, he emigrated to the United States and earned a graduate degree in Physics. After being in the engineering field for twenty years, he “retired to focus on his writing.”
McLean’s first published work, Broken Gourds, is a lively addition to the genre, and encompasses life in its most simplistic, yet complex form. It is obvious that this writer is very familiar with the local lore and the earthy idiom of his Jamaican kinfolk. The novel unwraps itself on the cusp of change in the rural township of Albion and inhabits the small rural Caribbean community at a time of transition. Slavery has ended and Colonization has taken a foothold, and there is immediate and poignant tension. Both old and new cultures clash, and the author wastes no time in evoking and representing their intolerance toward each other; each bearing its own demands and arguing that they are for the better of the community. Holding steadfast to the remnants of their Ashanti propriety, one group would rather preserve tradition and keep the old road (the main artery through town) primarily to draw their mule carts and stay "littered with colorful patches of wild high-scented flowers and nameless bouquets of dangling orchids." The other group (with their new money culture) see themselves as progressive and want to "modernize" things. They prefer to "improve the road so as to allow cars, trucks, and buses to flow with greater ease" through Albion.
As the novel progresses, “change” as a recurring motif becomes more inclusive and individualistic: One of the community's individuals desperately needs a life line and a chance to self-actualize in this inchoate setting, and Broken Gourds quickly moves from the revelatory explorations between the two feuding groups to its central character, Dada. It is Dada’s story that McLean really wants to tell. Dada enters the scene first as a “misfit” who suffers from an extreme case of eczemas. Socially inept, he fails to complete even the simplest tasks set by his father, Prince. As a result, the water reserve is left to dry up and unattended livestock wreak havoc on their farm, destroying the crops. Worse yet, this time of the year holds special economic, historical, and cultural significance. It is "banana day" when the fruit has to be carefully packed and loaded for exporting to England in order to help offset the family's penurious existence. It is also a time when the community “commemorate[s] the abolition of slavery in Jamaica”, and a time of "sacred storytelling" when [e]very iota of personal interest and worth [is] remembered and relived." Dada's failures imperils his life to the point where Prince erupts in a fit of anger and runs him down with a wooden plank shouting: "This is it, this is it. I am going to kill you!"
At this point, one cannot help realizing that there is something succinctly democratic in McLean's insistence that Dada deserves a better chance at life (even if only to mess it up). Dada understands to a great extent what is happening to him; he is an emoter and a ponderer whose heart becomes "burdened with feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt". But despite all his trials, he has a will to self-improvement and even vows to Granny that one day he will be king of the valley. Later, in a fortuitous twist of fate, he seizes upon the opportunity when it comes in the form of a visitation from an Ashanti ancestor, after which, and in response to a world in which he is a nobody, Dada's life changes (though precipitously). His body is healed and he becomes a religious leader imbued with great power to heal others, and in a quick move to authenticate his new identity, he changes his name to Brother Walk. In effect, he becomes the pillar of the same community which once rejected him. To some in Albion, the transformation seems highly plausible and there is jubilation, but others are clearly distraught by these turn of events and find various ways to plot against him.
While McLean’s characterization of Brother Walk is both humorous and sad, it is not morally ambivalent, and the author’s inspired choice is to let the protagonist tell his own story. Newly gifted and empowered, Brother Walk becomes larger than life. He can “look into people's souls, [and] fathom their feelings, [and] their hurts”. A messianic fervor has taken roots at the Balm Yard. “The sick came, and the sad came, and the dying came, and the despised came and sat on the ground before [him],” waiting for their healing, but human tendencies being what they are, (and as some readers may have surmised), there is something inexpungeably suspect about all this.
Without revealing too much more of the main plot, Brother Walk succumbs to temptations and readily acts on his carnal impulses. Then, for a while lust, illicit sex, and brute economics become his greatest symbols of liberation and representations of sin. Later, guilt-ridden, he tries to follow a path to self-renewal.
McLean’s clever intervening of supernatural forces also help to enhance the main thrust of the story and sustain its momentum. As a reader, at times, you expect an eruption with the surprising subplots, but the novel holds its equanimity to the end.
Other sharply observed and colorful portraits include Granny (Dada’s grandmother), who uses her good sense for the rightness of things to try to crystallize others’ spiritual and emotional well being. Her role is that of mentor, though at times her advice is disregarded. A good example is when Brother Walk swears to Granny to do right by Vida, then reneges on his promise. Then there is Red Rooster Bullock, the Village Obeah Man, who provides comic relief. He “grant[s] people their wish for a good fee”, and cures his sweet, pimiento stick in readiness for his rituals.
One of the very strong facets of Broken Gourds is its language. McLean's sentences are clean and spare with a few sprinklings here and there of just enough figurative language to convey social verisimilitude. Surprisingly, he shows no distinctions in the use of language between the classes despite other lines of demarcation drawn (at times) between them. There is no use of dialect or regionalisms. He uses basic mainstream English instead, (the Queen's English) so to speak. Though it may not be the case here, this is a tool that writers, sometimes, use when consciously targeting their audience, and it is usually highly effective.
Some may find it surprising for me to identify any fault in such a well-structured and fully realized novel. The Bildungsroman works well, and though Brother Walk is fully developed, occasionally I found threads of McLean’s characterization of him unconvincing, i.e., lining up all the uppercrust females to succumb so easily to his overly beguiling nature (all prostituting themselves for money to save their ailing marriages), while holding both Vida and Ruth (poor, disadvantaged females) to moral uprightness. We all know that immorality, dishonesty and deceit cut across classes. This quibble aside, Broken Gourds paints an exceptional portrait of rural Jamaica and also serves as a great advertisement for its author.
M. Stephanie Browne lives in California. She has written an unpublished book of poems and is presently creating a collection of short stories.
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