In her tender, lyrical debut collection, Layaway Child, Chanel Sutherland explores the inner landscapes of Caribbean women who immigrate to Canada from their island homes, often leaving behind their own children. Through a series of linked stories, Sutherland probes the complexities of motherhood from a distance, the dubious benefits of building a new life, and the complications of living between two worlds--for mothers and daughters alike.
In "My Mother's Hands Are Silver," a daughter both admires and pities the streaks on her mother's skin, "a map... of the labour that emptied her and fed me at the same time." The daughter also remembers her mother taking her to art galleries, giving her a library card, urging her to pursue her education. The silver in her mother's hands (and, later, in her hair) speaks of work and exhaustion, but also the effort to give her daughter a broader, brighter world. In a sense, all of Sutherland's mothers do the same: sacrifice their own dreams, hide their longings "in the folds of a tablecloth" to give their children a chance at success.
Sutherland draws a sharp contrast between the island of St. Vincent--lush and vibrantly warm, crowded with bodies and ripe fruit and memories--and Montreal-- sterile, cold, impersonal, "a city with teeth." Her characters, mothers and daughters alike, must learn to make lives for themselves in Montreal's unfamiliar landscape, dealing with homesickness and racism while holding onto their bonds of family and identity. Sometimes, their new lives require emotional as well as physical distance; often, they learn to present one face to their white employers, saving another for their friends and family. Their Canadian lives bring alienation and grief, but also new possibilities: friendships, education, potential careers, a different way of seeing the world. Sutherland's keen eye catalogs the losses but also acknowledges the bittersweet hope of building a new life in a new place.
For the daughters, who immigrate as children or teenagers, the stakes are different but no less high: forging their own dual identities as Black girls with island ties in a city that always looks at them slantwise. In "With Friends Like These," immigrant daughter Shelly finds an unexpected connection to home when she meets her white friend's housekeeper. As they share a glass of malt and a conversation, Shelly gains a glimmer of insight into her mother's life and makes a choice about how to live her own.
Powerful and moving, Layaway Child is a sensitive evocation of lives shaped by immigration, separation, and the tenacious love of mothers for their children. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Chanel Sutherland's lyrical short story collection explores the lives of mothers and daughters profoundly shaped by their immigration from St. Vincent to Montreal.