Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

Gillian Royes

Atria Pa­per­back, 2012

A re­view

Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks is that rare, en­joy­able lagniappe in fic­tion: the sec­ond book in a se­ries that one can read with­out hav­ing en­coun­tered the first. Pub­lished in 2012 by Atria Pa­per­back (a di­vi­sion of Si­mon and Schus­ter) it marks Gillian Royes' suc­cess­ful fol­low-up to her 2011 nov­el, The Goat Woman of Largo Bay. The fo­cal fig­ure in both books is unas­sum­ing bar­tender (and side­line sleuth) Shadrack My­ers, who keeps gen­tle but vig­i­lant watch over his sleepy vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty of Largo Bay, Ja­maica.

In The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks, Shad has his rea­sons to be wary about the ar­rival of his boss' at­trac­tive son, Joseph, who's vis­it­ing Largo Bay on busi­ness. For rea­sons that make Shad un­easy, Joseph may not be safe in this qui­et fish­ing vil­lage: rea­sons root­ed in the church and the fears of those who don't, it seems, know any bet­ter.Brought in by his fa­ther Er­ic to as­sess plans for a new ho­tel in the area, Joseph rep­re­sents pos­i­tive change, the likes of which might prompt re­al progress for many Largoites. Can Shad help his fel­low vil­lagers take stock of this, be­fore Joseph's stay in the idyl­lic ham­let shud­ders to a messy con­clu­sion?

In its glow­ing as­sess­ment of Royes' sec­ond nov­el, Kirkus Re­views sig­nals out the au­thor's tal­ent at craft­ing a vivid, cred­i­ble land­scape, herald­ing her as "bril­liant in bring­ing Ja­maican sun and sea, peo­ple and places to life." The Caribbean read­er can rest easy: this is no pithy, lack­lus­tre nov­el of tourist-post­card am­bi­ence.To be sure, some of the prin­ci­pal char­ac­ters do a bit of ca­vort­ing on beach­es, but there's much more teem­ing be­neath the glossy sur­face in these re­vealed pock­ets and cor­ri­dors of Ja­maican so­ci­ety. Royes draws it forth brave­ly and with­out flinch­ing: the tem­pered xeno­pho­bia, the per­ilous no­tions re­gard­ing male­ness, the crim­i­nal­i­ty, and the hy­per-vi­o­lent sen­su­al­i­ty that man­i­fests it­self in dis­tress­ing head­lines.

Easy as it might be to pi­geon­hole this charis­mat­ic is­land romp as air­plane or pool­side fic­tion, the au­thor pulls no punch­es when it comes to doc­u­ment­ing what mat­ters. Shad My­ers' Ja­maica is an is­land of bru­tal, be­wil­der­ing con­trasts.In these pages, peo­ple per­se­cute each oth­er for in­vent­ed crimes by morn­ing, and wine down low to sweet mu­sic by night. The du­al­i­ty is as se­duc­tive as it is dan­ger­ous, Royes seems to be sug­gest­ing–and it is em­i­nent­ly worth writ­ing about.

Charm­ing dra­ma-lite mys­tery sagas de­pend heav­i­ly on how their lead­ing la­dy or gen­tle­man is per­ceived: on that de­tec­tive's shoul­ders rests the chal­leng­ing bur­den of pro­longed like­abil­i­ty. How, then, does Shad bear out as a qua­si-Sher­lock­ian fig­ure for whom the read­er can cast her bal­lot, book by book? Com­fort­ing­ly, in Royes' hands, Shad is a plea­sure to read. This is a fel­la from whose tongue ole talk seems as nat­ur­al as an evening breeze.His char­ac­ter is im­bued with great danc­ing moves, a skill set that favours the finest rum punch, a fa­ther's de­vot­ed em­brace: all the at­trib­ut­es of a grand heart, and then some. It's dou­bly re­as­sur­ing to see the tiny, irk­some ways in which he's screwed up. His past is no pure slate, and this colours his hero­ism as some­thing the read­er can re­late to; he is si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly un­pedestalled and a plea­sure to know.

Shad isn't the on­ly one who feels fa­mil­iar in the cast of the nov­el's ma­jor and mi­nor play­ers. Joseph is drawn with equal parts al­lure and ret­i­cence, de­vel­oped as the ide­al mys­te­ri­ous man with some­thing rat­tling in his clos­et. His fa­ther, Er­ic, is primed for nos­tal­gic won­der­ings and mild­ly self-dep­re­cat­ing hu­mour, while the beau­ti­ful, aching­ly in­se­cure Jan­na car­ries emo­tion­al bag­gage well be­yond her 23 years.Royes' char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion is con­sis­tent­ly deft, well-man­aged: these peo­ple feel re­al in the very best way.Not a nov­el for the pre­ten­tious­ly high­brow, The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks con­firms the fact that you can write about se­ri­ous things in a non-sti­fling way, that deep is­sues can be brought to light with grace, can­dour and a hearty swig of rum punch.

Here's hop­ing Shad My­ers will turn up in a third Largo Bay nov­el be­fore too long, show­ing us more of his tough, beau­ti­ful Ja­maican shores.