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Mr Loverman (2013)

by Bernardine Evaristo(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0241145783 (ISBN13: 9780241145784)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Penguin

review 1: I enjoyed this one MUCH better than the book I previously (attempted to) read by Evaristo, Blonde Roots. Maybe because this one was (slightly) less obnoxious about trying so hard to make a fairly obvious point about oppression and bigotry? It's unfortunate that the character of Barry is as self-absorbed, selfish and all-around rotten as he is, and really detracts from the story as a whole. Barry's a queer man forced into a loveless marriage as well as the closet, but he's also willfully ignorant of how this arrangement affects his wife. Despite Evaristo attempting to paint him as a redeemed character in the end, the warm glow in my heart just wasn't there. However, I think the characters of Barry's daughters and his wife were much better done and the opportunity to re... moread about queer Caribbean folks in an overall realistic and sympathetic way was fantastic.
review 2: If there's another novel about a an elderly gay Aniguan couple living in London I haven't heard of it, i.e. this is, in my experience, unique. And it's very, very good. The narrator (who shifts between first person and omniscient) is Barrington Walker, who found the love of his life in Antigua in the '50s. But like so many of his era he married and raised kids. His lover, Morris, emigrated to the London before him, but he took himself there as soon as he could. As the novel begins it's 2010 and he's as unhappy with his marriage as his bitter wife is. Most of the novel takes place in the weeks his wife returns to Antigua for the death of her father. But the novel is quite discursive taking time to talk about traditional Antiguan culture, the changes over time in the UK, gay life in the closet, the lives and trials of his children and grandson, his wife's lifelong friends, etc. I found it all fascinating if sometimes (my only criticism) a little obviously didactic. less

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