Leone Ross is a writer who thinks deeply about her
craft. Beyond mere nuts and bolts—the practical minutiae of syntax and
punctuation—she grasps the workings of prose as few other writers do, at an elemental,
sub-atomic level, her words like charged particles, whirling and spinning in concert
to build up language of extraordinary power and beauty.
Ross never wastes a word. Her narrative style is
objective, concise, economical yet seldom spare; rich and colorful yet never gaudy
or effusive, animated by the lilting cadences of Jamaican patois, the
word-music of the mother island, that home where the heart is, if not the body; where hearts invariably turn to remember in spite of time or distance.
Ross gives us melancholy, homesick stories of the
Jamaican diaspora in Britain (Love Silk Food, The Mullerian Expanse),
unexpected flashes of humor in the midst of conflict and despair (President
Daisy, Velvet Man), the sweet-sour poignancy of imperfect love (The
Woman Who Lived in a Restaurant, Art, For Fuck’s Sake), tragedy and
heartbreak (Minty Minty, Mudman), and existential horror with a knowing
nod to island folklore and ghost stories (Roll It).
This is marvelous storytelling by any standard. The
author artfully seduces the reader, and the reader is more than happy to let themself
be seduced. The twenty-three short stories in Come, Let Us Sing Anyway
offer a sumptuous magical realism, the product of a frenetic and fertile
imagination squarely rooted in the rich soil of cultural identity, the keen
observation of gesture and motive refracted through a profoundly empathetic
lens.
It would be difficult—if not impossible—to understate
the excellence of this collection. As a reader, hungry for enlightenment, I was
dazzled. As a writer with an abiding interest
in the craft, I came away impressed, inspired, and deeply humbled.
Passionately recommended without reservation!
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