Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Agreat summer read! Have you ever found yourself channel surfing (does anyone still do this?) and stopped on The Hallmark Channel just long enough to see if you recognize any of the actors in the movie snippet they are showing? If you answered yes, then you know how I felt about Black Cake when I was scouring my home library for a book to review. Following a LONG hiatus when our five guest reviewers carried the reviewing load, I wanted/needed something not terribly demanding to ease my way back into reviewer mode. I had been given this book as a gift a while ago, but had been “busy” reading two of my book club books (typically more obscure than your garden variety best seller) and had barely looked at it. However, when I realized that Black Cake would likely be a less onerous read and perhaps even a crowd-pleaser, I had my Hallmark Channel moment and selected it as the perfect re-introduction to reviewer mode, since it didn’t encourage any great expectations on my part. It is certainly more challenging than a paperback romance novel but less so than a typical book club book– and best of all, it is graced with a colourful, glitzy cover.

This novel covers many crowdpleasing themes, chief among them the intricacies of family; how the passage of time affects our relations with friends and relatives; racism in different parts of the world and in various time periods; the significance of food (hence the title); the overwhelming need to look after our environment, in particular the oceans; and finally, the importance of acting in a timely fashion or risk losing the opportunity to act at all. There is also an underlying mystery, and, well, everybody loves a mystery.

The book begins in 1965, as the prologue entitled “Then” sets the scene of the mysterious, apparently violent disappearance of a young woman on her wedding day on an unnamed island in the Caribbean (Jamaica, incognito).this is followed by a quick trip through time to “Now”, the first chapter. Set in southern California, 2018, the reader is introduced to the two principal characters: Byron, a young black man who is expecting the imminent arrival of his “little” sister, Benny, short for Benedetta, whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to for eight years. The occasion is the formal playing of a recorded message from their recently deceased mother, Eleanor “Elly” Bennett. (Bert Bennett, their dad, had died six years earlier; Benny had been conspicuously absent from the funeral, further aggravating the estrangement between the two siblings.)

Byron, an esteemed ocean scientist and media personality who is engaged in mapping the ocean floor, is still subject to the off-handed bigotry endemic to North American culture: he is randomly and regularly stopped by the police, and routinely passed over for promotion at his job.

Byron’s sister Benny has eschewed attendance at a prestigious university in favour of travel and art school. This decision, as well as her nontraditional love life, has spawned the family conflict that resulted in years of isolation.

Over the next several chapters, we are introduced to Elly’s early life “in a town that bordered on the sea”. She is not Elly at this point, but rather Covey. Her father, Johnny “Lin” Lyncook, is a descendant of the Chinese laborers who ended up on the island when they were brought over to Panama to work on the railroad and demanded to be sent to a safer place. Many of these Chinese immigrants became successful merchants, but unfortunately not Lin, who had a weakness for gambling and drinking, which led to the exit of Covey’s mother, Mathilda. Covey though, becomes best friends with Bunny, and they spend the majority of their time swimming and surfing, until Lin, in order to pay off his numerous debts, arranges a marriage between Covey and a local island thug.

It is tempting to continue with the convoluted history of Covey following her wedding day in 1965 (the “Then” of the Prologue) but frankly, that would take the fun out of reading the full story of Byron, Benny, Covey, Bunny, Marble, and their interactions over the years leading up to the present. Suffice it to say that I was pleasantly surprised by both the story plotline and the quality of the writing.

This 2022 semi-autobiographical first novel by Wilkerson, a talented young American writer who has lived in Jamaica and is presently based in Italy, is 384 pages, but due to the layout (lots of white space), is probably only about 300 word-filled pages, max. Each chapter is very short, often a page or less, so the reader has the sense of whipping through the book at lightning pace. For those afflicted with a short attention span (me), it is pretty gratifying.

Since I will be donating this book to the Bibliothèque Lennoxville Library, it will be available for any library members who are looking for a good summer read to transport them away from the trials and tribulations of our current world situation.