by Petamber Persaud
In her eighth book, Carmen Barclay Subryan has pushed the boundaries of her writing to another level after safely (writing about what she knows) and successfully canvassing through the genre of historical fiction mainly with her trilogy – Black- Water Woman, Black- Water People and Black- Water Children wherein she reconstructed the birth, boom and travails of the bauxite mining township of Linden, a history that is intricately interwoven with the history of her family, the Allicock family, by now trying her hand at auto fiction, sticking her nose in local socio-political issues and sticking her neck out by offering suggestions on fixing the fractured system.
That this is a work of auto fiction is confirmed in the foreword written by Juliet Emmanuel ‘Life? Are there any answers to the cobbled together incidents that compose it? Is this the ultimate fiction?’ and in the prologue by the author as she employs her alter ego, Doreen, to tell the story.
It would be useful before going into the book to examine its title, Stepping on Cracks, which is taken from a children’s game with the complete first line/stanza: ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back’. The author uses this symbolically in reference to a recent visit to her motherland, Guyana, with the intention of relocating but discovers many cracks in the system (poor race relations, inadequate health care, poor infrastructure, insufficient job creation, unsatisfactorily reading, comprehension and expression skills etc) which she knows will break a lot of hearts for these many cracks in the system were disheartening. However, she is quick to clear any misconception about her writing ‘that pointing our issues in the country comes from a place of deep caring’.
The book is divided into two contrasting parts consisting of chapters one to six where she remembers and looks forward to enjoying some of those good old days and chapters seven to twelve consisting of reasons why she could not come back home including detailed accounts of jealousy and envy among people, infrastructure problems, race relations and aftermath of racial conflagration in the 60s, some of it, she says, will make your stomach churn with bile of anger and distaste.
A fourth novel about Guyana was never on the cards. And Subryan gives reasons how the book was birthed, evolved and finally published. She was retired from Howard University after teaching there for forty-one years so she wanted some time ‘to decompress’ while hoping for the opportunity to share her knowledge with students in Linden and to ‘focus on reading’. But writing was in her blood and because of her training as an English major and Journalism minor, she always carries around notepads which on this visit she filled to overflowing.
In her new book, Stepping on Cracks: Reflections on my Homeland, Subryan confesses she wanted to prove Thomas Wolfe wrong in that she could go back home again but discovers after an explorative five plus months in the land of her birth, she could not go back home while rediscovering that her real home was where the heart is, in Maryland, USA.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com Teenaged mother Viroshni Mithuram excels at CSEC
