When Banana Stains Fade: A Jamaican Family Saga of Adversity and Redemption
by Frances-Marie Coke
September 24-27
“When Banana Stains Fade will draw its readers into the compelling drama of over four generations of a Jamaican family, told through the lifeline of its women.” –Rachel Manley, author and winner of 1997 Governor General’s Award for Literature in Canada for Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood
When twenty-six-year-old Zarah returns home in 2002, desperate to reconcile with the family she abandoned, their first night together revives memories of events that led to her abandonment and their hopes fizzle.
Their reflections take the reader back to the inciting event years before… her thirteenth birthday, the onslaught of Hurricane Gilbert, her mother’s shocking miscarriage, and her parents’ separation.
Determined to warn Zarah against life’s treacheries, her grandmother Naomi discloses ugly societal and family secrets, but Zarah distances herself, scoffing at hints of a curse hatched on a banana field decades before.
As damaged as the ancestors she once disdained, Zarah finds true friendship at a support group, accepts culpability, and finds her way home to battle for the awakening and reconciliation essential to wholeness.
When her grandmother dies, Esther and Bradley travel with Zarah to the spot Naomi requested, and she sprinkles her grandmother’s ashes over the ocean, standing on the threshold of her second chance to become “the right person.”
Universal link for the book on Amazon
About the Author
“It is my firm belief that no writer completes a piece of work without help; it may come from persons who have shaped who I am; some may not even be aware of contributing to a story that was not yet conceived, or was well on its way. They helped by sharing an insight, an experience, a feeling from deep in their hearts.
As a student and an educator, I have been privileged to interact with Caribbean people of all ages in diverse settings. Despite persistent challenges, the fortitude, determination, and resilience of the vast majority have inspired me to record, in my writing, the recurring issues and themes in their stories. Although the contexts have primarily been Jamaican and Caribbean settings, the issues and themes are universal, and readers from varying backgrounds have confirmed that they resonate beyond these shores.
Many aspects of this story reflect my desire to unearth causes of intergenerational struggles, as well as colonial relics that still lurk beneath Jamaica’s lush landscapes and the veneer of unity reflected in the national motto “Out of Many One People.” Yet, I felt compelled to record the beauty of my country alongside its struggles, and to celebrate the resilient, courageous “Jamaican Family,” which despite being described as irreparably broken, remains the country’s backbone.
These were my reasons for exploring persistent controversial themes, including the impact of oppression on self-image and parenting, consequences of colorism, class structures, and inequity, love and its impostors, forgiveness, reconciliation, and the search for wholeness.
Surrounding it all, the island’s history and landscape, like characters in the drama, shadow the lives and fortunes of the characters, providing a backdrop and sometimes an impetus for their actions.
I am grateful to all who planted a seed in my head that has come to fruition in this novel. Like history, socio-cultural practices, and generational conflicts, green bananas do leave unrelenting stains, but the title of the novel is When Banana Stains Fade.”
Frances-Marie Coke
