CC Book Club Review
First Book Reading: Small Island by Andrea Levy
April – May 2022
Antonio Arch
With our second book and author, Book Club looks just beyond the horizon to our easterly neighbours.
If you’re looking for a better understanding or perspective of current events (especially the movement to decolonise the curriculum, the hostile environment story, the historical significance of the Windrush name) then I can’t think of a better resource than Andrea Levy’s Small Island. What’s noteworthy is that this great contribution to the genre almost never saw the light of day. Publishers and agents were especially reluctant to take a chance on writing that they saw as having no commercial appeal or potential interest. Her first three books, once published, saw critical success but none of the sales that Small Island achieved.
But novel and author challenged the pushback from publishing industry gatekeepers, both made and changed history, and sparked a new and enduring interest in the subgenre of Caribbean fiction. Levy had almost no real connection to Jamaica and spent no more than three weeks on the island in her lifetime, having grown up in a London home with parents who made efforts to assimilate and distance themselves from their island heritage. The author only found out of her father’s crossing on the Windrush when he one day mentioned it in passing during a TV programme on the topic, while ironing a shirt.
Levy admitted to not being particularly literary either; she read her first book at the age of 23 and only began writing to explore her own heritage and identity, eventually enrolling in creative writing courses at London’s City Lit. And yet the characters so relatable, prose so readable and overall, so easy to read it can be completed in a day. It employs devices that you might not expect to find in a comedy of manners. And it’s a combination of light heartedness and occasional comedy that helps to deliver an unforgettable story, five relatable characters and a believable portrayal of the difficulties of daily life on both sides of the Atlantic.
Winston Churchill acknowledged the contribution of Britain’s allies in an August 1940 speech, saying that, “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” but by the time that Levy’s story begins to take shape, the wartime help that came from British citizens in the Caribbean is conveniently forgotten, attitudes changed, and the welcome mats rolled up.
“If ever there was a novel which offered a historically faithful account of how its characters thought and behaved, this is it. But the sheer excellence of Levy’s research goes beyond the granddad tales of 50-year-old migrant experience, or the nuts and bolts of historical fact. Her imagination illuminates old stories in a way that almost persuades you she was there at the time.” — Mike Phillips