Patsy

Book on CD narrated by Sharon Gordon.

This novel follows Patsy, a young Jamaican mother of a 5-year-old girl, Tru, as she makes her way to America and tries to find a better life for herself. However, in order to find herself and achieve her potential, she must leave her daughter back in Jamaica, in the care of her father, a man Patsy never married, and with whom she’s had little contact. But leaving Tru with Roy is much better than leaving her with Patsy’s mother, Mamma G, a woman who has given all her pension to the Church hoping that Jesus will save her.

This story is in turns heartbreaking and inspiring. I applaud Patsy’s determination, courage, inventiveness and work ethic, but have difficulty forgiving her for leaving her show more child in Jamaica. Her guilt at this no-win choice is palpable and heart-wrenching. Her inability to deal with the very real results of her decision made me want to shake her. And then, I would feel so sorry for her – for the difficulty she faced when her dream was proved to be just that, a dream with no real basis in reality, for her struggles to survive, to find housing and work, for her misguided attempts to find even a little happiness and a sense of self-worth.

Dennis-Benn alternates points of view giving the reader insight into Tru’s life back in Jamaica. Her inability to understand how her mother could leave her, the sliver of hope a Christmas card conveys, and the defeat she feels when she finally accepts that her mother is not coming back. , My heart breaks over and over for Tru as she grows to her teens and hides her pain and sense of responsibility for her mother’s decisions.

But lest you think this is a depressing story, be aware that I loved these characters, even though I didn’t always like them. Despite all the hardship, all the bad decisions and failures to communicate, ultimately there is some triumph and some sense of hope.

Sharon Gordon does a marvelous job of voicing the audiobook. Dennis-Benn uses a vernacular patois dialogue in much of the book, and I found it difficult to make out the sense in those few sections that I chose to read in text format. Gordon’s performance made it easier for me to absorb and understand those lilting Jamaican accents. She really brought these characters to life for me. show less

This bittersweet story of love, selfishness, and survival moves with the title character’s patois, from a Jamaican slum town filled with nosy, judgmental, yet caring neighbors to the gentrified Nannyland of Brooklyn. Patsy gets a visa and follows her best friend Cicely to New York. Finding an untenable situation in Cicely’s home, she flees, undocumented, into a life of menial and demeaning jobs that would destroy anyone without her determination and stubbornness. Abandoned back in the shantytown of Pennyfield are Patsy’s daughter Tru, five when her mother departs, whose mother’s desertion forces her to join her divorced father's new family. Tru waits in vain for calls or letters from Patsy, who cannot push past her shame at show more abandoning her young daughter. Tru yearns for her mother while navigating a difficult childhood that's mitigated only by her success at school and her mastery of soccer, shared with the neighborhood boys who tease and torment her for not being a "real girl". In both locales, both the woman and the girl face seemingly unmitigated problems and challenges. The author seems to know the beating heart of every single character, from Marcus, Cicely's cruel and ambitious husband, to Fionna, Patsy’s generous Trinidadian powder room co-worker, to the coterie of mean girls at Tru's school. Moving from sublime peaks of joy to deep canyons of misery, the ten year span of the novel speeds by in the alternating disparate environments, and the reader feels anxious yet comfortable in both worlds, where love and success may possibly be reachable.

Quote: “But di weirdest t’ing ‘bout life is dat it’s only understood backward.” show less

Patricia Reynolds, called Patsy, has waited for years to fulfil her dream: going to the USA and leaving Jamaica behind. Even though she only got a visitor’s visa, she plans to never come back and instead make a career in the north just like her best friend Cicely. She abandons her daughter Tru who is too young to understand what happens and now has to cope with living with a new family while her mother seemingly enjoys her life in the Big Apple. However, it does not take too long for Patsy to understand that nobody waited for illegal immigrants and that she will have to take cleaning and nursing jobs to survive. The years pass and while Patsy slowly has to accept that her dream of a better life will never come true, her daughter show more struggles to find her place in a world that she simply does not fit in. She wants to play football like the boys and tries to ignore all signs that make her a girl.

Nicole Dennis-Benn’s novel offers a broad variety of subjects ranging from the situation of undocumented immigrants and their lives in the shadows, dreams her characters have that simply do not come true, the concepts of being a man or a woman and behaving according to others’ expectations, what it means to be a mother and to stick to your ideas and goals in life nevertheless, love and abuse, unhealthy relationships and dishonest friendships.

The author wonderfully parallels the developments of mother and daughter under harsh circumstances in the two different countries. Albeit the fact that there is an age gap of 21 years, a lot of progress is analogous like adapting to a new situation, high hopes that increasingly have to be adjusted to reality and finally, finding love where they never would have expected it. Especially Patsy’s American Dream gone bad is very powerfully narrated, most of all the moments when darkness surrounds her are most compelling. While I found most of the plot very interesting and brilliantly narrated, the novel was a bit too long and thus lengthy at times for my liking. show less

Patsy's mother Mama G "found" Jesus when Patsy was still a girl. She gave all her pension money to her church and refused to shop, clean, cook, or give her daughter any attention. Patsy's stepfather gave her attention, so much attention that she got pregnant. That baby was cut out of her.
After that, Patsy's only love was Cicely. They discover sex together. But Cicely left Jamaica for new York, and Patsy didn't hear from her for a long time.
Looking for love, Patsy "goes" with any boy who wants her. Roy falls in love with her and calls her Birdie. He gives her a baby, too.
But at 22, Patsy is not ready to love a baby. when Tru, short for Trudy Ann, is 6 years old, Patsy follows Cicely to New York, who has finally written to her, gushing show more that they can be together, and how wonderful it will be. Patsy leaves Tru behind, with Tru's father and his wife, promising Tru she will soon be back.
Patsy gets to New York and Cicely picks her up and takes her to her upper middle class home.
But Cicely has lied to Patsy: she is married to a cruel man who wants Patsy out of their basement guest room ASAP.
One night he beats Cicely, and when Patsy intervenes, Cicely lashes out at her, protecting her husband. This is when Patsy realizes the terrible predicament she is in: no job, no place to live, no money or papers to go back to Jamaica. And worst of all, she has to live with the lie she told her little girl, that she would be back, when she never had any intention to.
This is heartbreaking, and while it is fiction, it's representative of so many immigrants' lives, who come to the U.S. believing the stories their friends who preceed them here tell, too embarrassed to tell the truth about how cruel life is in the U.S. show less

This was a memorable story of a young woman from Jamaica who followed a dream to the US and then had to fit herself into the challenges and nightmares and exhaustion that comes with being undocumented and having no one to turn to. I was rooting for Patsy. She made some choices that were very harsh - leaving her young daughter behind and staying out of touch which was devastating for the child - yet, she was courageous and determined, and put her own disappointments aside in order to grow.

While I wouldn’t say this book was a total waste of time, I also wouldn’t say that I’m particularly glad I gave it a chance. I found the plot interesting enough but I never felt gripped by the characters and their emotions for more than a few pages at a time. I felt bored by the excessive descriptiveness which felt like a mediocre attempt at the beautiful descriptions I’ve seen from some of the writers the author and I mutually admire. I also struggled with the way information about the past was unfurled and the overall pace of the book. By the end of the book, I felt like I had spent 400+ pages swimming through molasses only to receive the smallest consolation prize for my trouble.

All in all, I realized while there are people show more for whom this book would be a good fit, I simply am not one of them. show less

3.5 stars. Patsy is a memorable character and this book goes fearlessly into some tough places, which I appreciate. Without spoiling anything, the plot feels a little flimsy.