This was a book selected by my book club and since I couldn't attend the night the selections were made, I saw the title and assumed it was a book about Patsy Cline. Ha! Imagine my surprise when I actually opened it up and started reading!
Patsy is actually about a young Jamaican woman who manages to get a Visa to visit the United States. She does not plan to return to Jamaica however, since she is in love with her best friend from Jamaica, Cicely, who left for the United States earlier and ended up marrying a man to get her green card. Patsy leaves behind her mother, who is a religious fanatic, and her five year old daughter, Tru. Patsy convinces Tru's father Roy, a police officer who actually loved Patsy but is married to Marva and has three sons, to take care of Tru. Marva really wants a daughter, so she seems to accept this new arrangement, even though Roy doesn't really give her a choice. For the most part, Marva initially seems to shine in her roll as a mother to Tru, but things eventually sour because Tru isn't having it. Tru wants her mother and won't accept her new "family". I actually felt sorry for Marva more than once. Tru won't accept her and Roy is a womanizer. Marva also gets pregnant a few more times, still trying for a daughter, but after a two or three stillbirths, she ends up giving birth to twin boys.
As a mother myself, it's hard to understand how a mother could leave her five year old, with no intention of returning or sending for her later on. Patsy also doesn't communicate with anyone in Jamaica for 10 years, other than a late Christmas card to Tru the year she left Jamaica. But Patsy's life in Jamaica was not easy. Her father dies. She is sexually abused by her "step-father"; her mother is a religious fanatic; she lives in poverty; her & Cicely are attacked one day by a man, but are rescued by Roy, who ends up getting her pregnant. This is Patsy's second pregnancy, but not a lot of details are shared about her first one, other than she didn't know she was pregnant until she gave birth and the baby died. Patsy doesn't feel like she has had any control over her life and she longs to escape it by following her true love (Cicely) to America.
Of course, things don't happen the way she thinks it will. It never does. Patsy struggles in America as well, especially since she isn't in America legally. Jobs are hard to come by without papers, so after a couple menial jobs, she end up as a nanny taking care of white people's children. This is ironic of course, since she abandons her own child. Her relationship with Cicely doesn't pan out either, since Cicely chooses to stay with her abusive husband rather than resume her relationship with Patsy.
Tru also finds her own path in Jamaica. She is smart. She is talented athletically. Her father, Roy, is one of her biggest fans. Since Roy is a police officer, she is protected. She has serious abandonment issues however, which isn't surprising. After 10 years apart, Patsy and Tru finally re-connect. They are both able to start making a life for themselves despite everything they have been through. It seems like Tru is finally able to accept her father's family as her own as well.
The most difficult part of reading this book was the Jamaican dialect. I am usually a pretty fast reader, but every time I came to a part where a character spoke in patois, the dialect spoken by Patsy and her family and friends, I pretty much stopped dead in my tracks. I also read every word of a book (I don't skim), so this really slowed me down. Although things start looking up at the end of the book, it's rather a sad read.
Wendy's Rating: ****
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