50books_poc | The Last Warner Woman

I was lucky to see Kei Miller reading from this at a recent writers' festival (during which he charmed me, and I suspect much of the audience, into buying the book). This gave me an idea of how the (two very distinct) narrative voices should sound, which I think was helpful in reading the book.

This seems to me to be a book about truth, where the truth lies, and what truth means. One narrator (described disparagingly by the other narrator as "that writer-man") seems to be telling the story in linear fashion - a "proper" story, perhaps one in which he is rather too much in love with the idea of story to be truthful. His efforts are derailed when the Warner woman, the subject of the story, discovers what he's up to and begins telling the story her own way. Each narrator struggles to tell their version, ricocheting off each other's words, until finally they collide, revealing - perhaps - the real truth of what happened.

It is also a book about perceptions: about how a Warner woman (a kind of prophetess, generally of doom) in Jamaica can be seen as natural, but in Britain, she is seen as mentally ill. Perhaps on a broader level, it is also about the way the white colonial narrative enforces itself upon people, even when we are unaware of it. It is certainly a damning indictment of the way West Indian people have been treated in the British mental health system.

Worth reading for anyone who can stand a little unreliable narration.

Miller has a website and blog here.