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Book Reviewed by:In 1946, a storm-wrecked boat carrying Hollywood’s most famous swashbuckler shored up on the coast of Jamaica, and the glamorous world of 1940’s Hollywood converged with that of a small West Indian society.
“Back in America, little was known of my life in Jamaica,” wrote Errol Flynn.
In 1946, a storm-wrecked boat carrying Hollywood’s most famous swashbuckler shored up on the coast of Jamaica, and the glamorous world of 1940’s Hollywood converged with that of a small West Indian society. After a long and storied career on the silver screen, Errol Flynn spent much of the last years of his life on a small island off of Jamaica, throwing parties and sleeping with increasingly younger teenaged girls. Based on those years, The Pirate’s Daughter is the story of Ida, a local girl who has an affair with Flynn that produces a daughter, May, who meets her father but once.
Spanning two generations of women whose destinies become inextricably linked with the matinee idol’s, this lively novel tells the provocative history of a vanished era, of uncommon kinships, compelling attachments, betrayal and atonement in a paradisal, tropical setting. As adept with Jamaican vernacular as she is at revealing the internal machinations of a fading and bloated matinee idol, Margaret Cezair-Thompson weaves a saga of a mother and daughter finding their way in a nation struggling to rise to the challenge of independence.
prologue.
the island that was errol flynn’s
The stories my mother told me weren’t the ones I wanted to hear, stories about the man she said was my father, stories that seemed to come not just from her but upon her, unguarded and effusive, or as we say in Jamaica, “Mouth open, story fly out.”
I loved stories about the pirates who used to rove among these islands. True Accounts of Sea Robbers, Treasure Island - these were the books I read over and over again until I knew whole passages by heart. And then at some point, with all those lofty phrases in my head, I began making up my own story. I called it Treasure Cove.
That was also the name I’d given to a place here on the island, a cove where a coconut tree leaned out crookedly over the water. You could sit on the tree trunk and imagine it was a ship at anchor. A white bougainvillea grew on the slope above, and I used it as a landmark -
She can see it all from the veranda - the cove and the white ...
Inspired by a few facts from Errol Flynn's life, and rooting her story firmly in Jamaican history, Cezair-Thompson vividly imagines the life of Ida, who is little more than a child herself when she gives birth to her daughter May, the illegitimate child of 1930/40s movie star Errol Flynn - known as a swashbuckling adventurer on screen, and for his glittering parties and affairs off screen. Most of the action takes place in Jamaica, but even when Ida leaves the island for some years the author stays true to the Jamaican experience because, for at least a century, one of Jamaica's primary exports has been its people...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Fred Powell, Main Street Books
Great story, wonderful/fully developed characters (will I ever forget Ida?), a little bit of Hollywood charm and name dropping (Capote, Monroe), but most interesting to me were all the political and social changes that were happening in Jamaica during the time period of the story.... Altogether a great book. Jamie Kornegay, Turnrow Books
I was completely caught off guard by how wonderful it is.... Everything here is very real and alive. The story is light and swift as a sea breeze, and imbued with the genuine essence of Jamaica. Her characters bound off the page, and while many writers would be tempted to give Errol Flynn run of the show, the mother and daughter outshine the matinée idol. I won't soon forget this family. The Pirate's Daughter has the makings of a sleeper hit. Kathy L. Patrick, Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
A treasure to read…A splendid adventure in reading and one that I would highly recommend for any armchair traveler. Stephen F. Shapiro, Rainy Day Books
After the tumultuous drama of her first novel The True History of Paradise, Margaret Cezair-Thompson’s new novel takes on a lighter air, but one no less atmospheric, about the unique way of life that is Jamaica. Combining elements both real and imagined—the actor Errol Flynn’s wayward years there, spent in mischief, like Gauguin’s time in Tahiti, as well as the author’s own romance with the high seas and Robinson Crusoe—The Pirate’s Daughter is a fantasy which unfolds in its own time, and on its own level of entertainment. Island characters who grow chapter by chapter are accorded respect as much as a sense of the comic (and, even, the cosmic), as they seek to entangle the secrets behind Flynn’s life and the mysteries of fiction. This is not the book that the title leads one to think it will be, or should; it flowers all on its own as a perfect word-of-mouth family fantasy. Susan Diffenderfer, Tall Tales Book Shop
After spending two straight days reading, I guess you could say I was totally absorbed. The chance meeting of an aging, ever vain Errol Flynn and Ida, a young, mixed-race girl and their ensuing brief relationship is the beginning of a poignant story of unrequited love and its ripple effect over two generations of family and friends. Imperfect yet intriguing characters made the narrative come to life, and the setting on the island of Jamaica is so vividly described, I almost felt the ocean breezes, smelled the frangipani, and listened to the island's patois. What is it about pirates and other swashbuckling types that continues to hold our interest over the years? Is it the freedom from ordinary rules? I wonder.The island nation ofJamaica is in the Greater Antilles about 385 northeast of the Central American mainland, and about 90 miles south of Cuba. Within a century of Columbus sailing the ocean blue and the subsequent Spanish occupation of the island in 1494, the native Arawaks (who called the island Xaymaca) had effectively died out, due to smallpox and interbreeding with European and African settlers (the term Arawak is used to describe the Amerindians the Spanish encountered in the Caribbean, which included the Taino, Lucayan, Bimini, Nepoya, Suppoyo and Caribs).
The Spanish used the island that they called Santiago as a base for supporting the conquest of the Americas; economic activity consisted primarily of production for domestic ...
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