Patsy
Fiction
Liveright
2019
Hardcover
432
Purchased
When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy’s plans don’t include her overzealous, evangelical mother―or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru.
Beating with the pulse of a long-witheld confession, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. Patsy leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when Patsy arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.
Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.
My review:
This was not an easy read, but it was enlightening and important. It's definitely not a happy book. Patsy's world once she gets to New York is way different than what she expected, in more ways than one. Being undocumented follows her in the decade during which this book takes place. Patsy is an intelligent, highly capable woman, but without papers she is forced to find menial jobs that keep her from sending money back home to Jamaica. Meanwhile her daughter is living with a father (and his family) who she barely knows, and struggling to survive at the fancy school her father insists she attend, and she can't understand why her mother doesn't contact her. I also found this hard to read in that the dialog was in the characters' English. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, it would not have seemed authentic, but reading the dialog slowed me down and was a bit frustrating when I wanted to get on with the story. I wish that I had looked for this one on audio, I think that would have made a huge difference! While I never totally warmed up to any of the characters, I do think that they were well written and authentic. The scenes from Brooklyn and Pennyfield (in Jamaica) were very immersive.
An excellent immigration story about following your dreams, and what that entails. I would suggest the audio version if you have access to it.
I recently read American Dirt, so I've been looking to supplement it with more stories about immigration. I'll have to add this one to my list. It already seems like a more authentic take on the subject.
Even amid the controversy, I was a huge fan on American Dirt! I didn't like this one quite as much, but I think the language issue had a lot to do with that.