Manyebook

The Pain Tree

Olive Senior’s new collection of stories, The Pain Tree, is wide-ranging in scope, time period, theme, locale, and voice.Like her earlier stories, Jamaica is the setting but the range of characters presented are universally recognizable as people in crisis or on the cusp of transformation.

Collected here are revenge stories (“The Goodness of my Heart”), a bargain with the Devil (“Boxed-in”), a Cinderella story (“The Country Cousin”), a magical realist interpretation of African spiritual beliefs (“Flying”) and a narrator’s belated acceptance of the healing power of traditional beliefs (“The Pain Tree”). “Coal” is a realist story set in the war years and depression that followed as folks try to find a new place in the world. Senior’s trademark children awakening to self-awareness and to the hypocrisy of adults are here too, from the heartbreaking “Moonlight” and “Silent” to the girls in “Lollipop” and “A Father Like That” who learn to confront loneliness and vulnerability with attitude.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 194
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781770864344
  • Genres
  • fiction
  • Release date
  • 2015