Research Catalog

Strange music

Title: Strange music / Laura Fish.
Author: Fish, Laura.
Publication: London : Jonathan Cape, 2008.

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Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	PR6106.I83 S87 2008	Off-site

Details

Description

215 pages; 22 cm

Summary

"In 1837 an ailing Elizabeth Barrett is confined to bed, suffering debilitating illness. Longing for a return to health and mobility, she corresponds with friends, endures uncomfortable remedies, writes poetry and frets over her father and siblings. On the Barrett estate in Jamaica a Creole maidservant named Kaydia is struggling to save her child from the abusive attentions of the master. In the cane fields, indentured laborer and former slave Sheba mourns the loss of her lover. In this complex novel, Laura Fish recreates the worlds of three women whose lives are inextricably linked at a moment of crisis within the Barrett family. Moving from Torquay in Devon to Cinnamon Hill in Jamaica, Strange Music explores the notion that history consists of multiple, even contradictory versions. Kaydia and Sheba narrate their stories in a distinctive patois, with a depth of emotion and experience. Like Jamaica, they struggle to escape a tragic past which seems ever-present. Elizabeth is geographically and emotionally distant, at once consumed with domestic minutiae and, as she matures as a writer, painfully aware of the source of her wealth and privilege. This ambitious story marks the return of a writer gifted with an unforgettable lyrical voice. As Elizabeth, Kaydia and Sheba struggle, each in her own way, towards emancipation, Laura Fish evokes the inescapable violence of slavery in prose that is immediate, consuming and ultimately redeeming."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

Genre/Form

Historical fiction
Fiction
Historical fiction.
Biographical fiction.

ISBN

9780224080859
0224080857

LCCN

2009286892
9780224080859

OCLC

ocn225452635
225452635
SCSB-9699977

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library