Andrea Levy's 'Fruit Of The Lemon'

Title: Fruit of the Lemon

Author: Andrea Levy

Reviewed by: Laura Facey

Following the acclaim of her Small Island, Andrea Levy's novel Fruit of the Lemon, first published in the United Kingdom in 1999, was published in the United States earlier this year. The reprinting intro-duces North America to Faith, a young English woman born to Jamaican parents who arrives in London on a banana boat.

Faith knows nothing of Jamaica until her parents, who rarely discuss their life before London, consider returning to the island. Faith is shocked and demands that her parents answer her, "Why is Jamaica home?" England is Faith's home, but her anger at her parents' loyalty to another country suggests a level of her own discomfort with calling England, Jamaica, or any one place 'home'.

Home is an intangible place that is defined by the individual; her familiarity with the country makes Faith think that England is her home. But is she from there or Jamaica? A quote from Will Holt's 'Lemon Tree' lyrics opens the book:

Lemon tree very pretty

And the lemon flower is sweet

But the fruit of the poor lemon

Is impossible to eat

England, the 'mother country' of Jamaica that her parents idealised in their youth, is the lemon. Growing up, Faith sees the beautiful lemon tree, England, but it isn't until she is a young adult that she tastes its bitterness.

racism

After receiving her college degree, Faith moves in with three white roommates and gets a job at the BBC in the wardrobe department. Quickly, she is exposed to covert, institutionalised and subtle forms of racism that create a divide of black and white in her previously sheltered life. Her parents are alarmed when Simon - one of Faith's roommates who happened to choose another white roommate to sleep with instead of her - tells them Faith isn't well and has been staying home from work for a while. They discover her hidden in her room with all her mirrors covered. Faith is affected by the pervasiveness of racism in her new personal and professional life as a young, independent woman in England, to the point of wanting to avoid facing her own colour.

Faith's parents, Mildred and Wade Jackson, understand that she needs to see Jamaica, hear stories about her family's past and see somewhere beyond Europe, where so many of the norms privilege those who are wealthy and more than anything, white.

And so, Faith starts her reverse immigrant experience, a rite of passage not to an idealised 'mother country' but to Jamaica, a chance to discover a new place to call home.

Levy focuses more on detailing Faith's experiences than on wondrous word choices. Her prose is colourful, clear and straightforward in a way that is only sometimes beautiful, like when Faith's flight lands in Kingston: "It was dark by the timeJamaica came into view through the airplane window. A small island glittering beautiful, like a tiara on the dark sea." The reference to a tiara, suggestive of a queen's jewels, when describing Jamaica is powerful because it denies England the privilege of imperial superiority. Kingston's city lights on the Palisadoes peninsula have their own majesty.

Faith gets off the plane and is greeted by her Aunt Coral and cousin Vincent who recognise one another despite never having met. This is only the beginning of the blood ties that unfold. Previous to meeting Aunt Coral, Levy gives us one family tree; as Aunt Coral explains their history to Faith, she adds on relatives until by the end, we have seven generations of Faith's family and the stories behind many of them.

One of the common threads of the family stories is the issue of race. Faith's maternal grandfather, "didn't like to be told what to do by people who were, evidently, darker than him". Faith, is overwhelmed when Aunt Coral describes that her parents married and left for England without Wade's parents' consent the reason for the disapproval - her mother Mildred's "black as night" skin colour. In pre-Independence Jamaica (and after as well, but I will keep to the scope of Fruit of the Lemon) complexion, not to mention money and class, was a stratifying element.

Imperial power

At the very end of the novel, Aunt Coral explains her colonial education to Faith. She was raised on stories of England the mother country to the exclusion of Jamaican history. The focus on the imperial power overshadows the importance of valuing what is right there - Jamaica and its diverse, mixed people - and reinforces white supremacy. With the help of Aunt Coral's stories, with the experience of standing on Caribbean soil, Faith grasps the complexity of what it means to be the descendent of immigrants from a colonised country. She is, in her words, "the bastard of the empire and I will have my day".

Faith returns to London on Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes was the orchestrator of a plot to assassinate King James I in 1605; he failed to carry it out but this event is celebrated annually. That Faith returns on the anniversary of this anti-imperialist plot is significant. England was once, and over three and a half centuries later, still is, a place where divides exist. Levy gives full expression to both Jamaican and English views, noting where and how they intersect, namely in Faith, whose transformation assures you that she will indeed have her day.