Patsy

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Pub Date Jul 04 2019 | Archive Date Jun 27 2019

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Description

From the award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn, a brave, stirring portrait of a Jamaican woman who leaves everything behind for a new life in America.

When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it’s the culmination of years of yearning to be reunited with Cicely, her oldest friend and secret love, who left home years before for the ‘land of opportunity’. Patsy’s plans do not include her religious mother or even her young daughter, Tru, both of whom she leaves behind in a bittersweet trail of sadness and relief. But Brooklyn is not at all what Cicely described in her letters, and to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a bathroom attendant, and ironically, as a nanny. Meanwhile, back in Jamaica, Tru struggles with her own questions of identity, grappling every day with what it means to be abandoned by a mother who has no intention of returning.

Passionate, moving, and fiercely urgent, Patsy is a haunting depiction of immigration and womanhood, and the silent threads of love stretching across years and oceans.

From the award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn, a brave, stirring portrait of a Jamaican woman who leaves everything behind for a new life in America.

When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to...


Advance Praise

‘Nicole Dennis-Benn is an exquisite writer who paints scenes with words so vivid you might as well be walking through it as a character, not a reader.’ Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light

‘Beautiful, shattering, and deeply affecting. Patsy’s story ultimately makes for a novel that is destined to endure.’ Chigozie Obioma, author of Man Booker-shortlisted The Fishermen

‘Frank, funny, salty, heartbreaking, full of love.’  Alexander Chee, author of How To Write an Autobiographical Novel

‘A novel that splits at the seams with yearning, elegantly written and deeply felt. Dennis-Benn leads the reader through Patsy's life with empathy and grace.’ Esme Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias

‘Dennis-Benn has written a profound book about sexuality, gender, race, and immigration that speaks to the contemporary moment through the figure of a woman alive with passion and regret.’ Kirkus

‘This is a marvelous novel.’ Publishers Weekly

‘An aching meditation on motherhood, sacrifice, and what it means to look truth in the face in order to fully become oneself. A beautiful book, as heartbreaking as it is restorative.’ Cristina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans

‘Nicole Dennis-Benn is an exquisite writer who paints scenes with words so vivid you might as well be walking through it as a character, not a reader.’ Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781786076564
PRICE £14.99 (GBP)

Average rating from 16 members


Featured Reviews

Patsy is a powerful novel about a Jamaican woman who leaves everything behind to go to America, at times heartbreaking and happy, and a moving look at identity and belonging. Patsy manages to get a visa to America, where she hopes to follow her childhood best friend and secret love Cicely who she hasn't seen in years. To do so, she has to leave behind her young daughter Tru, who she cannot connect with like she feels she should. But America isn't what she expected and Cicely's life is different now. As Patsy grapples with years as an undocumented immigrant, trying to fight her own feelings and loneliness, Tru lives with her father's family in Jamaica and is dealing with her own identity and with the abandonment by her mother.

This is an immersive and emotional novel that delves deep into Patsy's mindsets and life, but also manages to weave in Tru's story and the heartbreaking ways in which they are paralleled or separated. Patsy's journey is often bittersweet, with her attempts to find the life she wants to lead often not working out as expected, and immigration being far from her dreams, but at the same time the novel is hopeful and asserts the importance of living your own life and being who you want to be. It provides an insight into race in America, especially as an undocumented immigrant, and into life and class in Jamaica, as well as the gender roles that can be oppressive and not fitting the individual. The combination of Patsy and Tru's stories makes it particularly powerful, bringing a lot of the emotional moments as the novel grapples with ideas of parenting and what is actually best for the people involved, both mother and child.

Written in a way that feels immediate and vivid, Patsy is a novel that draws you in and gives a voice to questions of immigration, sexuality, and gender. It feels like a novel that will linger with you long after the last page, and hopefully will provide some of the representation that Patsy feels is so missing when she goes to America, unable to see people like her in certain places, from both Patsy and Tru's depictions.

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From the very start of this book you just get the feeling that it is going to be an excellent read.
It is based around Patsy who is from Jamaica and is trying to make a life for herself in America- yet it does not go quite as well as expected.
It deals with different emotions, sexuality and the feeling of belonging and acceptance.
Patsy is hoping to re-connect with friend and ex lover Cicely. However as the years have gone by life has also changed for Cicely.
Highly recommended read.
Great writing.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Oneworld Publication for my eARC of this book in exchange for my honest unbiased review

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Heart-wrenching and evocative, this novel provides a dual-narrative approach of a mother and daughter, separated after Patsy, the mother, leaves their home in Jamaica for a better life. Painful but ultimately hopeful, this story is empathetic and wonderfully told.

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Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of Patsy and what she will do for love. It's the story of an illegal immigrant in America. It's a story about survival. it's a story about parent-child relationships. It's about love, lost and found. its about self acceptance. it's not a nice story, It doesn't have a happy every after. But there was so much beauty in the writing. I couldn't put it down and certainly wasn't disappointed.

Will be highly recommending this one.

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My wife has set herself a challenge to read books by black women authors this year and somehow, I find myself reading reviews and gravitating towards the same kind of book. Patsy is the story of a young woman with a five-year-old daughter living in a poor area of Jamaica. She is desperate to get to America to find Cicely, her love and best friend from childhood, at the cost of just about everything she has, including her daughter. She finally manages to get her visa but what she finds in Brooklyn is not quite what Cicely has portrayed in her letters.

This is a beautifully written story which powerfully expresses the life of women who migrate for work or the hope of a better life in another country. It’s written from both Patsy’s and her daughter, Tru’s, points of view giving an incredible account of the trials and development both of them have to go through. Patsy is a complex character who and I found myself constantly having to pull myself back from judgement, even when I’m reading Tru’s point of view.

So much of it is such a stark reality check on the difference in the lives of women with privilege versus women who have so few choices. Women from poor communities have so little say over their lives and their bodies. They do what is expected of them in order to survive. Their bodies belong to men, sex is expected and consent is not needed. Sexual orientation and gender identity is not something they have any power to express. Possibly one of the saddest things though, is that for someone like Patsy, her status is pretty much the same in the US as it is in Jamaica.

I highly recommend it even though it’s quite emotionally draining.

Book received from Netgalley and Oneworld Publications for an honest review.

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