Review of HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE by Cherie Jones

 4 Stars

I chose this as an audiobook for morning walks because the title appeared on the longlist of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The novel is set in 1984 in Barbados, in the fictional town of Paradise with a stretch of beach known as Baxter’s Beach.  Eighteen-year-old Lala is trapped in a violent marriage.  Her husband Adan kills a rich white man, Peter Whalen, during a robbery on the night Lala gives birth to their daughter.  That murder is followed by another death, and more tragedy. 

The novel is organized into short chapters giving the perspective of various characters.  Lala, Adan, Mira Whalen (the widow of the murdered man), Tone (a beach gigolo and Adan’s partner in petty crimes), and Sergeant Beckles (the police investigator) have several chapters, but other characters like Esme (Lala’s mother), Wilma (Lala’s grandmother), and the Queen of Sheba (a prostitute with whom Beckles is infatuated) also receive some attention. 

Despite the number of characters, there is no difficulty differentiating them.  What is amazing is that sufficient information is given about each that their behaviour is understandable.  Backstories are provided for several characters so their motivations make perfect sense.  The childhoods of virtually all the characters include poverty, violence and abuse.

A major message is that lives are defined by trauma generation after generation.  Lala, for example, is raised as she is because of the experiences of Esme and Wilma.  Lala lives in a beachfront shack with 25 cement stairs to the sand; there is no banister and that serves as a perfect metaphor for her life.  It is not unexpected that Lala wonders, “What woman leaves a man for something she is likely to suffer at the hands of any other” because “for women of her lineage, a marriage meant a murder in one form or another.”    

This is not a book for the weak-hearted.  Murder, rape, incest, domestic violence, drug dealing, poverty, and prostitution all are featured.  For tourists, Paradise may be an escape from reality, but for the locals, Paradise is the reality they are trying to escape.  Unfortunately, escape seems impossible because events conspire to entrap people.  Tone wants to rescue Lala, but Sheba’s need to escape the attentions of Beckles means Tone is ensnared.  Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope in the ending, but it is faint.

The prose is beautiful, and the narration by Danielle Vitalis is exceptional, but readers should be forewarned that the novel is heart-breaking.  It is so full of tragedy as to be emotionally exhausting.