Island Man

by Joanne Skerrett

Overview

A grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother’s ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes. Amid the devastation, the fragile peace between father and son is tested as long-buried family secrets at the heart of Hector’s identity are unearthed. Hector faces down his failed marriage, shipwrecked career, and his own failures as a father, while Winston, after three decades of striving as an immigrant in Boston, seeks to reclaim the losses from a painful childhood and the bloody betrayal by his one true love. In Island Man, the ruins of past and present are reconciled and shattered generational bonds are restored.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636281308
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	08/01/2023
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	1,075,445
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joanne Skerrett is the author of several novels, including Abraham’s Treasure, a finalist for the CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Literature in 2011. She has worked as an editor for the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Raleigh News & Observer and is a candidate for the MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her recent work has appeared in Spellbinder literary magazine, where she won the prize for fiction in 2021, and in Rebel Women Lit. She lives in Washington, DC.

Editorial Reviews

In Island Man, Joanne Skerrett has written an impressive novel that examines the passionate loyalties and difficult choices inspired by the demands of community, family, and love against the dramatic backdrop of the repression of Dominica's Rastafarian community and the hero's migration to America. This satisfying novel takes the reader into the heart of the immigrant experience, what is found, what is left behind, what is lost, and, finally, what is claimed. You will find yourself dreaming, aching, and yearning with a cast of characters whose lives span generations and will remain with you long after the last page.”—Marita Golden, American novelist, nonfiction writer, professor, and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation

“When I read the opening paragraph of Joanne Skerrett’s fast-paced novel, Island Man, I knew my plans for the day had to be changed. The story starts with a Category 5 hurricane and what follows is hurricane-strength winds that fan a blazing and expertly constructed plot. Skerrett’s well-developed characters are alive; you can hear them breathe between the lines. It feels as if I know them. One of the highest tributes readers can pay to a book and its author is to admit that the story is so gripping, the prose so unrelenting and masterful that they could not put it down. Island Man is that kind of book. I could not wait to find out what happened after each chapter ended. The story of loss and redemption, twists and surprises, is powerful and necessary. It is timely, even as it spans decades; Dominica and Boston. Skerrett’s Island Man is glorious."—Katia D. Ulysse, author of Drifting and Mouths Don’t Speak

From the Publisher

2023-06-21
A man revisits his unconventional relationship with his father.

This book begins in the wake of loss as narrator Hector Peterson points out that he and his father, Winston Telemacque, are visiting the island of Dominica almost one year after the death of Hector’s mother. That’s not the only grounds for concern, however: It's 2017, and Hector and Winston are on the island during devastating Hurricane Maria. As the storm worsens, Hector looks back on his life and wonders whether this will be the end. From there, Skerrett intersperses scenes of the men and their extended family in the hurricane’s aftermath with scenes from both Hector’s and Winston’s lives, and the reader gradually learns that Hector grew up without knowing his father, only meeting him when he was in college. Hector recounts the circumstances that caused his mother to leave Dominica for Boston—and those which led to his father making his way there as well, becoming a successful businessman. Gradually, the novel reveals the scope of Hector's personal and professional alienation, including the disintegration of his marriage, which he accelerated with a series of affairs. By the time of the novel's framing scenes he has become, in his own words, “a public disgrace and a private failure”—and a man unsure if he can repair the broken parts of his life. The gulf between the idealistic young Hector, who vows that “the cycle of lies and dishonesty would stop with me,” and the more jaded, alienated Hector of the present gives this novel some of its emotional weight. At times the novel’s path forward and backward in time can feel overly dense, but the attention to detail and the unconventional father-son bond at the book's heart make for an affecting read.

A thoughtful reckoning with two men’s frustrations and contradictions.

Kirkus Reviews