Is America She Gone?
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Brooklyn was a beautiful place to be in the summer time. The weather was warm and inviting, the air was humid and ever so often, a breeze would blow around that hot summer air to dry the sweat from bodies that had been kept indoors for too long. Flatbush and Church Avenues were alive with the bustle of the summer bargain hunters. Summer sales, lemonade with crushed ice to cool the heat, hot, sweet-smelling, honey-roasted peanuts and children who could finally play jump rope outdoors, without the need to bundle up, were everywhere. It was as if the flood gates had been opened signaling the end of the many months of cold, harsh winter, several inches of snow and ice, bulky unflattering clothes and rainy, wet springtime. Summer shouted to every man, woman and child: “Here I am. Shed your clothes. Feel my sun on your bare skin. Run, laugh, dance, sweat, for I am summer and I love to play outside with you”. In Brooklyn the young, the old, the obese, the skinny, the single mothers, the teenagers with taut and well-toned bodies, the seasonal joggers, the models whose belly buttons had been covered since the fall, all answered the call of summer. Legs of every size, shape and hue, cellulite or not, donned short pants of every dimension and cut. Belly buttons peeked out from under every manner of tank top, revealing bellies of varying contours and levels of definition or lack thereof. Some belly buttons did not have to peek at all. Sweat ran down foreheads and in between breasts, on arms and legs, on tummies. Women and kids on rollerblades, boys on bicycles, old folks in wheelchairs all welcomed the summer with a collective sigh. There was definitely an excitement in the air and it was the kind of excitement that beckoned the housebound to come out on their porches and look out their windows so that they would not miss anything.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
When Sandra, a single mother of two, decides to go to Brooklyn and work illegally for six months as a caregiver, she really believes that she will be able to make a lot of money in a short space of time. Encouraged by her cousin Patsy who lives in Brooklyn, Sandra leaves her children Antonio and Andrea behind, in the hope that she will be able to make a better life for them. In the diverse community of Brooklyn with its large West Indian population, she feels very much at home. However after a few unfortunate encounters, Sandra soon realizes that America is not quite the place that she naively imagined it to be. She questions the wisdom of her decision many times but in her desire to send barrels home to her children, she loses sight of what is truly important – family. Andrea and Antonio face many challenges, as they struggle to cope with their mother's absence. Their father, who has started a new family, does not offer much parental support. Soon they fall prey to bad company and it is only a matter of time before their lives become irreversibly changed. When Sandra eventually returns to Trinidad having achieved her financial goals, she learns the hard way that money cannot take the place of a parent’s love and the price she must pay in the end for her decision is higher than she had ever imagined it would be. From the Author of The Stolen Cascadura
About the Author
Beverley-Ann Scott is a medical doctor and author of The Stolen Cascadura, which was selected by the Trinidad and Tobago National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS), for the 2012 One Book One Community Project. Dr. Scott holds a BSc in Information Systems and Management from the University of London and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Our Lady of Fatima University, Manila, Philippines. She spent many years in the business and banking sector before deciding to pursue a career in medicine. She is one of the youngest authors of West Indian fiction from the island of Trinidad and Tobago where she currently lives and works.