A memoir that tackles how your life can change when the foundation of that life is pulled out from under you.
In rural Trinidad, Tony lives grandmother, brother and a mish mash of others. His life is like that of any other child growing up in a rural area of the Caribbean; school, church, playing with friends and making mischief when bored.
His life changes when his grandmother died, and he and his brother move to Canada to live with their aunt. Here, everything is different, he is different, an oddity, and so he tries to fit in when he has no one to ease his way into this new social construct.
Downing writes with an almost brash quality. The prose is crisp and no-nonsense even when sharing trauma, he approaches it with the vulnerability and steel that can be found existing dually in children.
We see his desire to reconnect and build a family with his toxic parents, even when they disappoint time and again. And eventually, his foray into healing the broken little boy inside, which is a lifelong process.

"The Queen designed my brain." is the first sentence in this four part memoir. It is a critical statement hinting at the ramifications of colonialism and the implications of it at an intimate level.

The most important thing about this book is the exquisite writing. Every page is full of swoon worthy prose. I ended up highlighting line after line - way too many to begin to share all of them with you in this review.

Please forgive me if I've gotten carried away with the quotes.

I will never be able to do justice to the beauty of Downing's words.

You will have to read it yourself.

The book is organized into four acts. Each act references a specific time in his life and the different person he was in each of them.

Act one: Tony

Until he was eleven years old the author lived in Trinidad with his older brother, Junior, and Grandmother who they called Mama. The rest of the community called her Miss Excelly. Mama was a deeply religious woman who gave generously of her love, time and whatever she had, trusting that whatever she needed would come back to her. The gifts she gave Tony would enable him to survive what hell he would end up facing, including the abuse he endured from a neighbour there. Downing wasn't aware of the gifts then, but it's there in his writing when he writes about coming home from school. Mama was always singing. Tony was greeted by it every day. "Her voice perfumes the very air... All of creation became her voice calling me home."

Tony was a excellent student who loved to read. As he read from the white canon of literature, "what unfolded page by page, battle after battle, image after image, was the great river of things that explained the world." He came to understand "the golden rule: there was a place called white, and it was always better."

He was attending a prestigious school when Mama died.

Act Two: Michael

At age eleven, Tony and Junior were taken from Trinidad to Waubigoon, an indigenous community in Northern Ontario. They lived with their Aunt Joan who was a social worker working with the people there.

Tony became Michael. His first teacher was a nightmare. Not only did she change his name, she tested him and recommended he be put ahead two grades. I gasped as I read this - already seeing the disaster this was likely to become. I remain angry thinking about how different things might have been for him had he been allowed to remain with his peers.

He became increasingly isolated: not fitting in with his classmates or the white or the indigenous community. At the same time, even at his young age, he understood he was more connected to the latter group than either of the former. While attending a PowWow he acknowledged that the Indigenous people were as much victims of racism and colonialism as he was. He also came to understand that their power and strength had not been completely destroyed, "they were still here. They were still part of the land."

Aunt Joan, who knew much about the boy's background, tried to do her best by them. She understood that Michael was 'fragile and explosive.' Still, she allowed Junior to be sent away to go to a prestigious school in the United States where his Aunt Agnes would become his guardian. Agnes then abandoned him, just like she had abandoned the boys' father when he was in her care.

Joan tried to stop it, but when Michael was twelve, the two boys ended up going to live with their father and stepmother, Al and Hailey.

There is a pattern to Downing's writing that make me ache for him. It is full of the most endearing moments and memories. Then the next line lets us know they are only fleeting. Writing about a time with his father he shares:

"he would listen to what I had to say. He cared about what I thought. My father- the man I knew only from photos and tales- cared what I thought. I eased back in the seat and tried to lean like he did, sneaking peeks to make sure I got it right. I studied the hair on his face where he had shaved that morning, the brown tinted sunglasses the obscured his eyes but not his vision, and the confidence, as if nothing as square as worry had ever touched him. The way laughter would jerk and explode out of him in a spasm, as if he were four years old and hitting a bike rim with a stick as he dashed down Monkeytown Third Branch. It was the first time I had felt that close to him.
It was also one of the last."
Al and Hailey were addicts. "Living with addicts is like living with zombies: you never know whether they'll eat you or ignore you." They only wanted the boys for the government money they brought in.

The beginnings of who he could become is hinted at when he writes a 'choon' that is sung by Junior's band. Over time Junior spent increasing amounts of time away from home. Eventually he moved out and became "a space I no longer recognized." Michael escaped the lonely craziness of his homelife by retreating into words and songs. He didn't understand that these were the same things Miss Excelly had needed to survive: "how to read and how to sing."

Eventually Michael moved in with Ami, his father's second wife. While there he connected with his two younger half brothers and joined the basketball team. Ami, a white woman, worked hard and did her best, but could barely make ends meet, never mind feed an athletic, growing, always starving teen.

On a basketball trip he responded to the racist bullying of his white teammates and ended up being the one who got suspended. He writes, "I had always understood the pecking order of our basketball team. Certain boys were always given the benefit of the doubt. There was a place called "white:" and it could get away with murder."

Thankfully Coach Barry Lillie and his wife, Elaine, invited him to live with them. Eventually he became part of their family and ended up getting into the University of Waterloo.

During this time he reconnected to his mother, Gloria and more of his half siblings. He ended up responsible for the reunification of his parents. In the end, it ended up in disaster.

When he was cut from the university basketball team, he was left with an unfillable void. Downing writes, "basketball had fathered me. I had soaked up second hand daddying from my teammates. Between the sweaty practices, the nail-biting games, and the breathless sprints, I had absorbed the lessons their fathers had taught them."

A new friend, Chachi, introduced him to art and helped him fill the emptiness. Spending time together, Downing wrote while Chachi painted.

Act Three: Mic Dainjah

Transformed into a new person again, Downing hid from his damaged self through running, women and music. On the surface he was successful. He worked for Blackberry and became a Canadian citizen.

As Mic Dainjah, he was the lead singer of a band called Jen Militia. When he was performing he "vanished to a place with no father, no mother, no corporate bosses, no good kids to keep up with - just the certainty of being alive and somewhere I belonged."

Anger simmered beneath the surface. After hitting his girlfriend, he ended up in an anger management program. He writes about this time with brutal honesty. It's loaded with sympathy and empathy for his peers in the program. The men had to take responsibility for their actions, learn to recognize their triggers and de escalate situations. He writes powerfully about acknowledging guilt and shame. This treatment program helped him, but it wasn't enough. It would take much more therapy before he would be able to heal himself.

He continued to spend time with Elaine and Coach, his unofficially adopted father. But acknowledges that, "Even after fifteen years, it was still disorienting to be loved by them"

Act Four: John

In this section Downing writes about his ongoing therapy and coming to the realization that 'while I was busy hiding from myself, words and music had saved me. I was still living off an old lady's prayers." He begins to deal with, "the monster lurking at my core." He begins to tend to the little boy who doesn't feel good enough.

Of course, recovery isn't instant.

Many friends helped Downing survive. Gada Jane's introduction to the art collective was an important part. Working with her on the John Orpheus project was another. Everyone needs someone who will tell them, "you are enough on your own."

His friendship with Howard was instrumental in leading him back to Trinidad and a feeling of belonging. The little boy inside him started to become whole again with Howard's help.

This book translates the global ramifications of colonialism into an intimate level. It's a story about abandoned fathers abandoning their sons who in turn abandon their own children. It's about the power of women who are the"mules of the empire, forced to carry the burden of the Crown's dreadful legacy, of black bodies chained to the spines of ships, of broken families, of men disempowered, stripped of their status in the home, sent to roam the earth with only their sex to prove their manhood, slaves by blood and by circumstance, saga boys." It's about trying to fit into a mould not made for you. It's about searching for love, family, and home. It's about learning to love and learning to forgive. It's about becoming who you are.

Over the space of eight years Antonio Michael Downing lived in six cities, went to six schools and had six different guardians. It could have decimated anyone, never mind a Black youth who, on top of all that, had to deal with a history of abuse.

The miracle of Antonio Michael Downing is not that he became a successful professional and artist after all he experienced, but rather that he survived at all.

I raged and wept many times while reading this book. I am left thankful for the gift of learning a bit about what it means to be a Black Canadian from Trinidad. I hope to be a better ally after finishing it.

While reading this memoir I spent some time watching John Orpheus music videos. I hope you enjoy Electric, from a new album he is working on, as much as I did.

Saga Boy is a story about finding identity and navigating seemingly contrasting identities. Through his story and the story of his family, Antonio Michael Downing shows how resilient people can be and he displays the deep, lasting effects of trauma.

This book was enjoyable in many ways. I learned a lot about Trinidad, and Downing's evocative descriptions paint vivid pictures of people, places, and situations. I also enjoyed seeing Canada from the perspective of someone who didn't grow up here.

Although the narrative is well-written, it has a few flaws. I wish there was more structure to the story; there are many little vignettes, and sometimes the order of them seemed random. I will say, however, that I started to see the threads weave together more near the end of the book.

In addition, the narrative felt like it dragged on a bit in the last quarter. I wanted to understand John Orpheus more; I felt like I grasped the first three aspects of Downing's identity better.

Overall, Saga Boy is eye-opening and informative, and Downing's story sparks empathy for people society generally looks down on.

TW for readers: rape, substance abuse, neglect

Thank you, Net Galley and Penguin Random House for the ARC!

SAGA BOY: My Life of Blackness and Becoming by Antonio Michael Downing is a moving memoir that really drew me into his life story. Antonio shared deeply personal experiences from his early childhood in Trinidad to moving to Canada with such honesty that was so engaging for me as a reader. It was really interesting to hear his thoughts on growing up as an immigrant, his untraditional family unit, and finding himself within his cultural identity and musical inclinations. It was truly a wonderful journey to read his life story and I’m so curious to listen to some of his music now!