Stick No Bills

In the opening story, sharply observed details of a walk through a St Lucian coastal town to an ageing uncle’s house, chance encounters that trigger memories, a cell-phone call from home in Trinidad, the way an incident—like refusing a lift on the way to the house—becomes part of the enlivening narrative of the day, all cover with the myriad details of pulsing life what is really a story about mourning the death of the character’s mother. In this, and a sequence of stories that chart the playful delights of childhood family holidays with uncles, aunts, and cousins and the break-up of those connections through deaths and the passage of time, there is a fine balance between recording the feelings of desolation and the pleasures of reconstructing the joys of the past through art and memory. The collection, through its careful organisation of individual stories into an artfully constructed whole, offers a richly consoling passage through griefs of various kinds towards a sense of continuance and human resilience.

Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw was born in Trinidad, and is Professor of French Literature and Creative Writing at the University of the West Indies. She has coedited several academic works and has published two collections of short stories: Stick No Bills and Four Taxis Facing North. Her novel, Mrs. B was short listed for the “Best Book Fiction” in The Guyana Prize for Literature Award.