PATSY, THE STUNNING SECOND NOVEL BY NICOLE Dennis-Benn, chronicles the often hidden sacrifices that black immigrant women make in pursuit of the ever elusive American Dream.
As in her first novel, the acclaimed Here Comes the Sun, Dennis-Benn crafts a narrative set between her native Jamaica and her current home of Brooklyn, this time following a mother and child on distinctly different paths over the course of a decade. Patsy, 28, is the ambivalent mother to 5-year-old Tru. When Patsy departs Jamaica for the U.S. in 1998, in search of opportunity, she leaves Tru behind.
Readers will judge Patsy at the outset for abandoning her only child, who is wrestling with her own identity back home—approaching adolescence as a gender- nonconforming athlete in a country that offers neither language nor tolerance for what it means to be black, working class or queer. Her mother has chosen a life without her; when Patsy does acknowledge Tru, she sends a package with glittery nail files, hair bows and Hello Kitty stationery—a sign that further distances the mother from the person her child is becoming.
This story is from the June 3 - 10, 2019 edition of Time.
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This story is from the June 3 - 10, 2019 edition of Time.
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