The Pain Tree - Softcover

Senior, Olive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845233484 ISBN 13: 9781845233488

Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd, 2017

Synopsis

From the author of Dancing Lessons, Finalist for the 2012 Amazon.ca First Novel Award and Finalist for the 2012 Commonwealth Writers Prize, comes an unforgettable collection of short stories. Olive Senior's new collection of stories, The Pain Tree, is wide-ranging in scope, time period, theme, locale and voice. Her characteristic 'gossipy voice' is present in many of the stories, but as well there is reverence, wit and wisdom, along with satire, humour and even farce. The stories range over almost a hundred years, from around the time of the second world war to the present. Like her earlier stories, Jamaica is the setting but the range of characters presented are universally recognisable as people in crisis or on the cusp of transformation. While most of the stories operate within a realist mode, Senior in this collection is also exploiting traditional motifs, so we have collected here revenge stories ('The Goodness of my Heart'), a bargain with the Devil ('Boxed-in'), a Cinderella story ('The Country Cousin'), a magical realist interpretation of African spiritual beliefs ('Flying') and a narrator's belated acceptance of the healing power of traditional beliefs ('The Pain Tree'). 'Coal' is a realist story set in the war years and depression that followed as folks try to find a new place in the world. Senior's trademark children awakening to self-awareness and to the hypocracy of adults are here too, from the heartbreaking 'Moonlight' and 'Silent' to the girls in 'Lollipop' and 'A Father Like That' who learn to confront loneliness and vulnerability with attitude.

About this title

About the Author

Olive Senior is the prize-winning author of a dozen books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Her short story collection Summer Lightning (Longman, 1986) won the inaugural Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, and her poetry collection Over the Roofs of the World (Insomniac, 2005) was a finalist for the 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Born in Jamaica, she has travelled widely and now spends most of her time in Jamaica and Toronto.

Review

“At every level of her stories’ constructions, Senior works deftly ... dealing with open palms in the deep wells of remembrance, ancestry and a crosshatch of colonising scars, this fiction looks face-upwards to the mountains of multiple Jamaicas for hope, home and daily bread.” (The Trinidad Guardian)

“The magic of Olive Senior’s stories is that they weather time with uncommon power. In these collected short fictions, published and broadcast in various incarnations from the 1990s forward, the concerns of class, language, identity, and refuge reign, explored in prose that is all the more commanding for its subtle navigations.” (Caribbean Beat)

“[Senior’s] prose is supple and ornate ... there is technique aplenty.” (Quill and Quire)

“[Its] voices are authentic – a variety of rhythms and cadences appear on the page – and Olive Senior pulls readers into quiet moments of transformation with considerable emotional intensity. Like Alice Munro’s stories, some are remarkably complex structurally ... like Mavis Gallant’s short stories, these combine the engaged eye of a resident with the distanced eye of an observer ... I read The Pain Tree twice (yes, twice!)” (Buried in Print)

“We read these stories fully expecting that we will meet our real selves along the way. We are not disappointed.” (Rachel Manley)

About this edition

• Publisher: Peepal Tree Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1845233484
• ISBN 13: 9781845233488
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296