Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson: A review

Eleanor Bennett is dead. That is the first incontrovertible fact with which we are presented. Her two children, Byron and Benny, are estranged from each other, and Benny was also estranged from her mother, although her mother continued to reach out to her. Eight years earlier, Benny had announced to her family that she was a lesbian. That had precipitated the break and they had not spoken to each other since. But now, Benny has returned home because Eleanor Bennett is dead and she is required to be at the settling of her estate.

Before she died, Eleanor did two things: She recorded an eight-hour-long audio tape for her children to explain herself and tell them the story of her life and she made a black cake, a family recipe for a fruit cake, and froze it. The tape tells a complicated story that they had not been privy to previously. They must listen to it in the presence of Eleanor's lawyer. Their mother left instructions for them to eat the black cake together at a time that they will both recognize is right.

We learn that Byron has a successful career, but his sister has been unable to settle on a direction for her life. She dropped out of college years ago and has wandered rather aimlessly through life since then. We also learn that their mother was originally from an unnamed island in the Caribbean. There, she was a young girl named Covey. She and her father had been abandoned by her mother. After her mother left, she never contacted them again.

Covey's father was a gambler who also drank to excess, thus making her life less than secure. Her greatest joy was swimming in the ocean with her best friend Bunny and her boyfriend Gibbs. She and Gibbs made big plans for the future. They would go to London after they graduated high school and attend college there. They do get to London and eventually to the United States, to California, and it is there that they spend the rest of their lives.

Interspersed with Covey/Eleanor telling the story of her life on the audio tape, we also get snippets of the story of Benny and Byron. While I found Eleanor's story to be sympathetic and her character to be likable, I can't really say the same for Byron and Bunny. They had once been close as children but after Benny's big reveal, Byron evidently abandoned the relationship and they had no further contact until after their mother's death. Each of them was self-absorbed and unable, or unwilling, to really care much about other people, including each other.

The audio tape provides a number of surprises for Eleanor's children, but the biggest surprise is that they have a half-sister. As a young woman on her first job, Eleanor had been raped by her boss and had had a child as a result. Her daughter had been given up for adoption. That daughter is now a successful television personality in London.

This was the debut novel of Charmaine Wilkerson and one has the feeling that she attempted to cover all the major social issues in one plot. She attempts to address not only workplace rape but things like racial and gay discrimination, police brutality against Blacks, the pollution of the ocean, arranged marriage, forced adoption, parental abandonment, and on and on. It's too much! If she had stuck to just one or two of those, it would have been a much stronger and more coherent plot. The main characters are well-drawn, particularly Elizabeth and her husband, but the story told is disjointed with events sometimes occurring out of order. A tighter focus would have made for a much more enjoyable read.

On the plus side are the emphases on the importance of foods and traditions to island life and the references to the history of the island which could be a stand-in for most of the Caribbean islands. It is a rich and complicated history that provides the outlines for a potentially great tale. That isn't this book, but still, this one isn't bad.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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