The Long Song, by Andrea Levy

Book #1, done and dusted. I have to say that I expected something quite different from Prize-nominated books. I was expecting weighty, perhaps a little elitist. This is not the case with this very readable book.

The Long Song tells the story of July, a slave girl on a Jamaican plantation. It uses a deliberately aware narrative framework; the blurb itself alerts you to the fact that the narrator is learning the format of a novel as she writes this story. At times, the reader is withdrawn from July's world and into the world of the narrator. These are signalled by a shift in language to the more common conversational language the characters in the 'story' use, and while they're often frivolous little interjections, these moments give a clearer voice to the narrator, and break the tension or stillness of the story at the time.

My favourite part about these interjections, though, is the way the narrator's son will impose his own expectations on his mother's writing, questioning the way she has described something, or omitted a section he deems worthy. It raises questions of the process of writing, and of remembering. This process is also reflected in some parts of the story, where the writer will not only tell the event as she remembers it, but will also fill in the versions known to other memories, urban legend or tall-tall tales.

July's story itself is partly tall-tall tale, partly sad-sad tale. As a child stolen from her mother, she begins a life of servitude to a selfish white woman who changes her name and screeches at her constantly. No white characters are painted in a positive light in this novel, even those who begin with good intentions. It is a harsh judgement on the imposition of a social structure upon another people, but for the most part told in a cheery, joking tone which almost brushes over the severity of the crimes committed.

I really enjoyed this book. It was immensely readable, and the characters were quite easy to connect to and pity, if not always like.  Even though you're aware that the story is being filtered in several ways, by memory or editing, you are still so swept up in the events that you don't mind.