White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey (thoughts)

I first heard of this when several of my favourite British bloggers raved about it last year. While I was patiently waiting for it to make its way across the Atlantic, I was delighted to see it show up on Netgalley! Due to a flare up, it took me longer than I expected to start it, but as soon as I opened it I was enthralled. In fact, the pages seemed to fly by, and while I can see how some of Roffey’s choices won’t work for every reader, I have nothing but gushing praise for every single one of them. I could always feel the intense amount of concentration and deliberation Roffey put into her writing, and she completely won me over: on an intellectual level and on an emotional one. (On a brief sidenote, this is the first white Caribbean author I’ve read, and I was a bit nervous, but I thought the racial aspects were handled marvelously. And that’s from someone who spends a lot of time thinking and reading about racial stuff, and is deeply troubled by a lot of racial aspects of publishing today. Although I’m white, of course and not Caribbean.)

But let’s back up a bit: one of the most notable features of the novel is its structure. The first part is told in a shifting limited third person and is set in the present day: we meet a septugenarian couple, George and Sabine, who came over right before Trinidadian independence and have never left. Both of them have a lot of disappointment, both with themselves, their marriage, and their adopted homeland. In response, George conducts ‘fluffy’ interviews for a newspaper, while Sabine has simply withdrawn into herself; when their black housekeeper’s son is beat up by the police, both receive a radical wake up call. This part lasts about two hundred pages, and could stand as its own novella. But then, after the plot’s climax, Roffey shifts us back in time to George and Sabine’s arrival in the 50s; at the same time, the narrative shifts to first person, entirely focused on Sabine. Whereas in the first part, we see Sabine primarily through others’ eyes, suddenly we’re privy to her personal experiences and thoughts. I love this: I think it’s a brilliant metaphor for Trinidad itself, which as a colony was seen through the ‘third person’ eyes of the West and was only able to gain its own voice, and share its own point of view, after a cataclysmic event prompts independence. Also, Roffey is such a strong writer that although I inevitably knew how the final part of Sabine’s story must end (after all, she’s still on the island decades later), my heart was racing to see how the second plot climax would play out. That’s how deeply Roffey had me believing in Sabine and her story; limited to the perspective of her younger self, I forgot about anything else.

All of the characters were sharply drawn; even the minor ones were memorable. And the setting is perfect: Trinidad’s steamy lushness seemed to rise out of the pages. Roffey’s prose is so rich, it was a delight to read, and as I mentioned earlier it flowed smoothly; although the book’s ideas are dense, it’s a ‘quick’ read in that the writing keeps you flipping pages. The combination of such masterful fiction writing with such a sharp insight into political, racial, and gender issues made this a dream book for me. If it weren’t for my pain, I would easily be writing a three thousand word post and just begin to skim the surface of all this novel has to offer. Just writing about it makes me want to reread it! I started reading Caribbean lit a couple of years ago, and so far I’ve loved every author I’ve tried. Due to that, and all of the good reviews I read last year, I went into this with incredibly high expectations; White Woman on the Green Bicycle met and exceeded every one of them. If you like smart, challenging, compelling fiction, this is a must. It was an epic reading experience for me, and now I’m trying to track down a copy of Sun Dog, her debut!

Suggested Companion Reads (linked to my thoughts)

• The Book of Night Women by Marlon James (I didn’t review this, which is a shame, but I loved it to pieces; it’s historical fiction set on a Jamaican plantation and features lots of strong women.)
• The Girl With the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer (A neat fable by another Jamaican author.)
• The Farming of the Bones by Edwidge Danticat (A wonderful novel by quite a famous Haitian author.)
• A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (This is a stinging, smart, slim nonfiction account of colonialisation, past and present, in the author’s native Antigua; it’s perfect itf you’re looking for the black side colonialisation’s harms.)
• Small Island by Andrea Levy (While Roffey’s story is about white British people going to the Caribbean, Levy’s is centered around black Jamaicans going to England.)
• Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo (Another debut novel by a Trinidadian, I loved this for its Caribbean gothic feel.)
• Ruins by Achy Obejas (Rounding out Caribbean lit, we can’t forget Cuba! This looks at the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, from the perspective of an ‘everyday’ Cuban.)
• The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson (Yet another wonderful Caribbean author! I especially love it for its unusual narrator: a forthright, at-times cranky woman going through menopause.)
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (Gaiman is obviously not Caribbean, but this book is steeped in Afro-Caribbean culture and beliefs. It’s great fun!)
• The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (This novel also explores feeling constrained by social circles, and the psychological effects of being part of an occupation.)
• Burmese Days by George Orwell (Orwell deftly exposes the problems facing British colonialists in Burma, all while indicting imperialism.)