Join us and our host, Corinne, every other month as we dive into Caribbean literature. Born and raised in Trinidad & Tobago, Corinne will pick books written by authors based in the Caribbean, and across the Caribbean diaspora. This club invites you to experience the rich culture and history of this region through their stories. Next up is Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed!
About Pleasantview:
Coconut trees. Carnival. Rum and coke. To many outsiders, these idyllic images represent the supposed easy life in Caribbean nations such as Trinidad and Tobago. However, the reality is far different for those who live there—a society where poverty and patriarchy savagely rule, and where love and revenge often go hand in hand.
Written in a combination of English and Trinidad Creole, Pleasantview reveals the dark side of the Caribbean dream. In this novel-in-stories about a fictional town in Trinidad, we meet a political candidate who sets out to slaughter endangered turtles for fun, while his rival candidate beats his “outside-woman,” so badly she ends up losing their baby. On the night of a political rally, the abused woman exacts a very public revenge, the trajectory of which echoes through Pleasantview, ending with one boy introducing another boy to a gun and to an ideology which will help him aim the weapon.
Merging the beauty and brutality of Trinidadian culture evoked by writers such as Ingrid Persaud and Claire Adam with the linguistic experimentation of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, Pleasantview is a landmark work from an important new voice in international literary fiction.
This book club will be hosted via ZOOM, a video conferencing app for computers and phones. Open to all -- please just rsvp with a ticket for access to the ZOOM meeting. You can also purchase a copy of the book here which will give you:
a copy of Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed!
access to the guided ZOOM discussion with our host, Corinne , from Lost City Books
*** We ask that participants be aware that you will need to download the ZOOM app to join the meeting. Within ZOOM, your camera's audio will pull your video to center-screen so it is advisable to set up in a quiet area. Additionally we ask that participants be courteous and take turns speaking/remain aware of your floor time so that everyone can get the most out of the book club experience.