DNF - I appreciated many aspects of this story but ultimately I didn't connect with the flow at this time. I might try & listen to it via audiobook as I think that this was simply due to reading it at the wrong time. I will revisit this story again!

The Island of Forgetting is a debut novel by Bajan-Canadian writer Jasmine Sealy, clinching the UBC/HarperCollins Best New Fiction Prize in 2020. Thanks to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

We follow four generations of a Bajan family operating a family run hotel with the story opening in the 1960s and extending to 2019. The main characters are named after Greek mythology figures: Iapetus, Cronus, Atlas, Calypso etc and follow their characteristics. Cronus is therefore fated to kill his father, but transposed into this Bajan setting where the father was physically abusive to his wife and sons, and perpetually drunk. Young Iapetus, who witnessed the deed of patricide by his brother Cronus, is driven to madness. Secrets, madness, children growing up fatherless and dreams deferred become a recurring theme through the generations. The changes that Barbados undergoes, from vast fields of sugar cane and donkey carts, unimpeded coastal views of the sea transitioning to multinational hotel chains, demolition of heritage buildings and usurpation of beach access and land by foreigners come across nicely. This is the second book in a row I've read featuring popular vacation destinations (the one before this being Nuclear Family by Joseph Han based in Hawaii) where the local people view tourists with disdain and rue how much destruction and damage tourism has wrought on their island. As Nautilus, son of Calypso notes "The economy runs on foreign investment and tourism. We dug up the mangroves to build hotels, and now the beaches are eroding and the corals are dead. The thing that feeds us is killing us slowly." I have visited Barbados a few times, snorkelled from the shore and the coastlines are being choked by sargassum seaweed.

In each generation, the young yearn to leave the island, feeling constrained. After sitting for their CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination) exams, they dream of attending university overseas. For various reasons, their plans are thwarted
and put off for later
<i> Time, time, time. This is how it passes, a life made up of one practical decision after another, a thousand small concessions. And then you don't often think of them anymore - all of those paths not taken, those lives unlived - but you carry them with you always. </i>
Yet when Junior, Cronus' lackadaisical adult son, and later Nautilus make it off the island to Canada, they are miserable there.

The novel overall is pretty bleak. Sometimes it felt like the characters had to conform to their Greek mythological namesake counterparts. I was uncomfortable with the arc of young Calypso who has sex with a foreigner scientist who came as a delegate for an environmental conference when she is underage and later falls hard for a white older married hotelier. Since we mainly follow the characters of each generation when they are teens, I wish we could have burrowed more into the thoughts and reflections of the characters when they were older, such as Atlas and Pleione.

3.5 ⭐️

The weight of familial expectation, dreams deferred and destroyed, and a malaise of identity haunt each of our main characters in this story. The secrets and inability to come to terms with the darker parts of loved ones and themselves severely hamper their growth and progression.

What made me stick with this story was the hope that there would be a brighter ending for this family. The characters were joined by a lineal bond of obsession. An obsession that manifested in different ways and affected the manner in which these characters moved through their lives.

But at the end I had to come to the realization that there would be no cathartic release (at least not in the way I wanted), no healing family round table. But what the writer does is leave the ending open for the reader to determine just how much reckoning and reconciliation will occur.

Sealy also portrayed what I call typical stereotypes of Caribbean society. The 'mad' man, the fas' young gyal, and the queer young man who hides his identity and is sent away so as not to embarrass the family. But this was a strong debut and will appeal to a lot of readers.

Delighted to include this title in the April edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for Zoomer magazine. (at link)

The Island of Forgetting is a hauntingly beautiful intergenerational family saga that takes place in Barbados. It depicts how trauma affects families and transcends through the generations. The characters in this novel are so well developed. I was so invested and could not put it down! It very much reads like a coming of age story for each of the characters. If you like novels that are character driven , then this is the book for you!

I really enjoyed the insight into island life from a local perspective and the trials that come with running a hotel for tourists. It was interesting to learn of the locals perspective on tourists inhabiting their resorts and beaches.

Well done Jasmine Sealy! 👏🏻 It was so refreshing to read this unique story set in the Caribbean. 🥰 I love how it was inspired by Greek mythology!

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.