What A Mother's Love Don't Teach You

- Reviews -

Pulses with the colour and cadence of Jamaican culture in a multi-layered story told with empathy and intelligence. It is both an elegy of great elegance and a testament to the resilience and optimism of Jamaican people. Sharma' s skilled storytelling drew me into the heads and hearts of the residents of Jacks Hill and Lazarus Gardens and did not let me go. I' ll never forget this cast of characters or the voice of this accomplished writer - an outstanding debut. * Cherie Jones, author of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House * Truth-telling! Taylor' s debut is tender, violent and uncompromising in turns. A vivid and authentic Jamaica that tells a tale too often hidden, for fantasies of sun, sea and sand. * Leone Ross, author of This One Sky Day * A cacophonic, alive, heart-breaking story of a particular place and time, made universal by its truths and wisdom about love. * Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies * An astonishing book. In riveting, irresistible prose, Sharma Taylor' s genre-crossing novel (a love story, a crime story, a yard fiction) tells a tale of Jamaica and America, of class, colour, race, history and the dignity of the dispossessed. The authenticity of its detail produces a searing truth that convicts us. The largeness of its vision challenges our ideas of what it means to be human. * Curdella Forbes, author of A Tall History of Sugar * Takes us on a wonderful multifaceted journey through the lives, loves, pleasures and atrocities of the folks of Lazarus Gardens and Jacks Hill. There is an impressive choral quality to What a Mother' s Love Don' t Teach You, with voices that shift with remarkable ease and seamlessness, between lyricism, humour and rawness. A very impressive achievement. * Jacob Ross, author of The Bone Readers * An arresting first novel. As if to nod to the Jamaican national motto "Out of Many One People," Taylor' s novel gives voice to multiple perspectives on how class, race and gender are lived in this "exotic" Caribbean island and at what cost to human relationships. * Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of the Woman' s Prize longlisted The Bread the Devil Knead * A sharp polyphonous story in which Taylor skillfully moves the reader through a world pulsing with pain, love, power, violence and tenderness. We are reminded of that tension between where we come from and what we gravitate towards, what steers us and why. An exciting read. * Yewande Omotoso, author of An Unusual Grief * Taylor portrays a complex web of Jamaican characters in settings ranging from tenement yards to mansions with an authenticity that radiates throughout the novel. Set in an important time in the island' s history, it' s a colourful portrayal of a young man searching for his soul, the two mothers desperate to claim him, and the ultimate sacrifice one has to make. A wonderful debut novel. * Gillian Royes. author of the Shad series * In the opening chapter of What A Mother' s Love Don' t Teach You, Dinah describes her home, the tenement yard at Lazarus Gardens, as a place where, "is like everyday, the water have to decide if to come inside. " In essence, the novel is about just that: choices. Written in alternating voices - sometimes Jamaican patois, sometimes Standard English - Sharma Taylor reveals how and why the choices of the denizens of Lazarus Gardens necessarily differ from the choices of Jamaica' s uptown folk. Taylor' s great accomplishment is how she captures the darkness of the ghetto while never dimming the vivacity, determination and exuberance displayed by its people. This is a thrilling read. * Celeste Mohammed, author of Pleasantview * A beautifully crafted debut, rich with rhythmic, lyrical patois and surprising revelations * Jacqueline Crooks * I was knocked out by this novel. It' s a fantastic, enthralling story of clashing cultures: very funny and then utterly heartbreaking. The vibrant and terrifying world of Kingston in the eighties is totally gripping and the dialogue is so alive that I find it hard to believe it' s a first novel * Mick Kitson, author of Sal *

- Author Bio -

Sharma Taylor is a Jamaican writer and lawyer living between Jamaica and Barbados. She holds a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, obtained on a Commonwealth Scholarship. Her short stories have been shortlisted three times for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and have won several prizes including the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Prize, Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize and the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. What a Mother' s Love Don' t Teach You is her first novel.

- Full Details -

Status:	Active
ISBN-13:	9780349015521
Published:	7 Jul 2022
Published In:	United Kingdom
Imprint:	Virago Press
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Format:	Trade Paperback
Height:	234mm
Width:	153mm
Spine:	22mm
Weight:	41g
Pages:	432

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