Dr Glenville Ash­by

Across the Caribbean: West In­di­an Short Sto­ries is a com­pi­la­tion of 16 sto­ries, se­lect­ed in a 2009-2010 com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­ised by nov­el­ist Lyn­don Bap­tist of Pot­bake Pro­duc­tions. It is an eclec­tic ex­po­si­tion of sto­ry­telling, meant to be unique­ly "Caribbean." But is it?

The sto­ries are stag­ger­ing, sub­tly touch­ing on the va­garies of life, many in a haunt­ing fash­ion. Gone is the breezy, lais­sez faire in­to­na­tion of West In­di­an life. In­stead, we are of­fered tene­brous snap­shots of those wound­ed by the cold­ness of na­ture, if not God. In many ways, Across the Caribbean pa­rades as a shroud­ed warn­ing of life's in­im­i­cal in­tent, scream­ing at read­ers for at­ten­tion.

"Life is no bed of ros­es," it sings with an un­com­pro­mis­ing clar­i­on.

Au­thor af­ter au­thor march to the podi­um, out­do­ing each oth­er with in­ci­sive du­ty-serv­ing re­minders, no less of life's wretched­ness.

Caribbean Sto­ries proves dis­cur­sive, very much uni­ver­sal in ap­peal. Each writer is im­pres­sive, bring­ing a unique style to Caribbean lit­er­a­ture, with is­land ver­nac­u­lar bleed­ing through near­ly every page. "Wuh about we bread­fruit?" "Y'all gine put me in the pot?" "Wuh y'all up tuh?" we read in Big Rock Soup. Typ­i­cal West In­di­an stuff. But the writ­ers swerve from this path, hedg­ing their bet on un­earthing the in­ner­most cham­ber of the read­ers' sub­con­scious -the place where shad­ows dwell. In Crazy Mary and Tears for My Moth­er, the tin­der­box we call the mind is laid bare with fright­en­ing pre­ci­sion. And the haunt­ings nev­er abate.

From the raw sim­plic­i­ty of Nathi­fa Swan's Ac­cept­ed, to the bo­hemi­an and ur­bane so­phis­ti­ca­tion of Ray­mond Yusef's The On­ly Man, Caribbean Sto­ries is bereft of an ounce of hu­mour. So it seems. Even Merisa Robert's Vil­lage Sto­ry, which has all the trap­pings of West In­di­an joc­u­lar­i­ty, is laden with tales of do­mes­tic hard­ships and a du­plic­i­tous love af­fair. In the wist­ful and tran­scen­den­tal mus­ings of Tara Ram­s­ingh in The Beach Awaits, death is again served, al­beit on a more sani­tised plat­ter. And Jumbie Boy comes to a sin­is­ter end-a far cry from the sar­don­ic twist of fan­tas­ti­cal tales. So­cial is­sues me­an­der through many of the themes. The hot but­ton top­ic of bul­ly­ing is draped in the mytho­log­i­cal lean­ings of Lov­ing­ly Mis­chie­vous. Here, the writer Schaunne Bad­loo ex­horts vic­tims to stand their ground and as­sert their worth. In Trou­bles Bourne, the peren­ni­al sub­ject of abor­tion is de­liv­ered with a wrench­ing pain, a pain that forces read­ers to re­vis­it the over­rid­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions of the act.

"I can hard­ly re­mem­ber the few weeks of my preg­nan­cy. The scars on my wrist, though serve to re­mind me of what hap­pened af­ter­ward, the pain that wouldn't go away," the pro­tag­o­nist moans. And the vex­ing prob­lem of ve­hic­u­lar manslaugh­ter is rue­ful­ly ex­plored in The Beach Awaits and the Mud­dy Shoes. Re­gret­tably, Across the Caribbean does not of­fer a tem­plate of life on the is­lands. From the open­ing sal­vo, read­ers are em­broiled in a high volt­age purview of per­son­al strug­gles on a pyrrhic scale-hard­ly a bar­gain-at least at the out­set. Slow­ly, though, the nar­ra­tive grows more pre­dictable, less dis­con­cert­ing-as­sum­ing its own coun­sel-as though the writ­ers fig­ured out the for­mu­lae to grab the read­ers' at­ten­tion. And they do. In the end, this show­case of Caribbean lit­er­ary tal­ent be­comes an ex­ten­sion of the read­ers' own pho­bias, ap­pre­hen­sions, tri­umphs, and dis­ap­point­ments. On this very ex­is­ten­tial lev­el, Across the Caribbean scores with its dri­ving re­demp­tive qual­i­ty.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is a New York au­thor and jour­nal­ist

Across the Caribbean: West In­di­an Short Sto­ries

IS­BN 978-976-95236-6-1

Pot­bake Pro­duc­tions, 2010, Trinci­ty, Trinidad West In­dies

Avail­able: www.pot­bake.com (868) 640-0512

Rat­ings: ***: Rec­om­mend­ed