My review of Small Island by Andrea Levy

Small Island 

By Andrea Levy  

It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do?

Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door.

Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was...

MY THOUGHTS

It didn't matter if they had fought for England. It didn't matter if they had volunteered to put their lives on the line for their Mother Country. All that mattered was the colour of their skin.

Small Island by Andrea Levy is a tale of hummingbirds and meat pies, sweltering heat and the chill of an English winter. 

Unsurprisingly,  racism is a large part of this novel. Gilbert is a Jamaican man who joined the RAF, for what better honour was there than wearing the blue uniform and fighting for the Mother Country? And although he adjusts to the climate,  he soon realises that the uniform does not matter if he comes from Jamaica.

Hortense doesn't find adjusting to England as easy as Gilbert does. She despises where they are forced to live—the room is run down, cold, and dirty.  The differing perspectives of this novel have been navigated expertly, for when reading from Hortense's perspective. I sympathised with her. However, reading Gilbert's side of things changed everything. How could Hortense not see how hard he was working, how lucky she was?

Alongside the lives of the Jamaicans, this novel shows the other side of the coin.  The lives of Bernard and Gilbert are very similar; the only difference is the colour of their skin.  Although I understood Bernard's side of the story, I found it very hard to sympathise with him. 

Queenie, on the other hand, is wonderful. Queenie is a lovely woman and a gloriously crafted character. Her empathy and joy are infectious, and her friendship with Gilbert despite the views of the nation is beautiful.

I thought this book was brilliant from beginning to end.

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