9th February 2010

Catalogue > Biography & Autobiography: General

From Harvey River

A Memoir Of My Mother And Her Island

Lorna Goodison

'Throughout her life my mother lived in two places at once: Kingston, Jamaica, where she raised a family of nine children, and Harvey River, in the parish of Hanover, where she was born and grew up.'

In lush, vivid prose textured with the cadences of Creole, Harvey River tells a universal story of mothers and daughters; of family and the ties that bind us to the place we call home.

When Lorna's great-grandfather, William Harvey, discovered a clearing at the end of a path cut by the feet of escaping slaves, he gives his name to what became his family’s home for generations. For Lorna’s mother, Doris, Jamaica’s Harvey River was the place she always called home, where she was one of the 'fabulous Harvey girls' and the rich local bounty of yams, pimentos and mangoes went hand in hand with the Victorian niceties and comforts of her parents' house. Years later, when her fortunes changed, it was a place she returned to in her dreams… She and her husband relocated to 'hard life' Kingston and encountered the harsh realities of urban living at close quarters as they raised their family of nine children.

Peopled with a cast of wonderfully drawn characters, Lorna Goodison’s memoir weaves together memory and island lore to create a vivid and universally appealing tapestry.

About the author

Lorna Goodison is a poet, who has written eight books of poetry and two collections of short stories. Her work has been widely translated and anthologized. In 1999 she received Jamaica’s Musgrave Gold Medal. Born in Jamaica, Goodison now teaches at the University of Michigan. She divides her time between Ann Arbor and Toronto.

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