{"product_id":"how-to-love-a-jamaican-stories-9781524799229","title":"How to Love a Jamaican: Stories","description":"\u003cb\u003e \"In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine.\"--Zadie Smith \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cb\u003eAn \u003ci\u003eO: The Oprah Magazine \u003c\/i\u003e\"Top 15 Best of the Year\" - A\u003ci\u003e Well-Read Black Girl \u003c\/i\u003ePick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret--Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \"Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,\" an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In \"Mash Up Love,\" a twin's chance sighting of his estranged brother--the prodigal son of the family--stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In \"Bad Behavior,\" a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In \"Mermaid River,\" a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In \"The Ghost of Jia Yi,\" a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in \"Shirley from a Small Place,\" a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother's big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAlexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction's most dynamic and essential authors. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eHow to Love a Jamaican\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"A sublime short-story collection from newcomer Alexia Arthurs that explores, through various characters, a specific strand of the immigrant experience.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"With its singular mix of psychological precision and sun-kissed lyricism, this dazzling debut marks the emergence of a knockout new voice.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--O: The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories . . . Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last.\"\u003cb\u003e--Carmen Maria Machado, author of \u003ci\u003eHer Body and Other Parties\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"Vivid and exciting . . . every story rings beautifully true.\"\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eMarie Claire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlexia Arthurs\u003c\/b\u003e was born and raised in Jamaica and moved with her family to Brooklyn when she was twelve. A graduate of Hunter College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has been published in \u003ci\u003eGranta, The Sewanee Review, Small Axe, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vice, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review, \u003c\/i\u003e which awarded her the Plimpton Prize in 2017.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50468108566802,"sku":"9781524799229","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_662b1940-e4f3-4fb1-a760-837261e2e814.jpg?v=1730135095","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/how-to-love-a-jamaican-stories-9781524799229","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}