The ladies are upstairs
Subtitle: a collection of stories
By: Merle Collins
Publisher: Peepal Tree
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Leeds, England
Language: eng
Number of pages: 155
ISBN-13: 9781845231798
Subjects: Fiction
Description: From the 1930s through the dawning of a new century, these tender and moving stories underscore living life with style and hidden steel despite one's circumstances and warn against disregarding the past struggles of others. Doux Thibaut negotiates a hard life on the Caribbean island of Paz, confronting the shame of poverty and illegitimacy, the hazards of sectarianism on an island segregated into Catholics and Protestants, and the injustices of racism and classism. As an old lady moving between the homes of her children in Boston and New York, Doux wonders whether they and her grandchildren really appreciate what her engagement with life has taught her. In The Ladies Are Upstairs, Merle Collins has created a mosaic novel from these stories of a Caribbean woman's life, demanding that such lives not be forgotten.
Table of contents: title: Rain darling; title: Doux stories: Mapping. Français, anglais. You should see them in church with glasses on! You don't count. Big stone. Jericho and the lady. The ladies are upstairs. Fashionable ladies at the Old Mill. He brings her warmth. Sweetie.