A MILLION AUNTIES
American-born artist Chris is forced to reconsider his conception of family during a visit to his mother’s Caribbean homeland.
After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother’s homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated “family.” The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view,
American-born artist Chris is forced to reconsider his conception of family during a visit to his mother’s Caribbean homeland.
After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother’s homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated “family.” The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with surprises along the way.
- Akashic Books
- Paperback
- November 2020
- 202 Pages
- 9781617758928
Buy the Book
$16.95
About Alecia McKenzie
Alecia McKenzie is a Jamaican writer currently based in France. Her first collection of short stories, Satellite City, and her novel, Sweetheart, have both won Commonwealth Book Prizes. The French edition of Sweetheart was awarded the Prix Carbet des Lycéens. Her other books include Stories from Yard, Doctor’s Orders, and When the Rain Stopped in Natland. Her writing has also appeared in a range of literary magazines and in anthologies such as Stories from Blue Latitudes, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, Bridges, Global Tales, Girls Night In, and To Exist Is to Resist. She has edited two collections of contemporary short stories, and her poetry has been published in various international journals including The Caribbean Writer and the Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Her most recent novel is A Million Aunties.
Praise
“Alecia McKenzie’s tender new novel [is] an emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience.” —New York Times Book Review
“Delightfully original, this novel centers Chris, an American who travels to his mother’s homeland of Jamaica to reflect and heal after tragedy strikes. What he encounters is unexpected, complicated and, perhaps, just what he needs.” —Ms. Magazine
“Racial identity, nonfamilial relationships, and the restorative nature of art are all explored as McKenzie considers the possibility of regeneration of the human spirit even as we grapple with the tragedies of lost loves and changing worlds. McKenzie successfully integrates various speech patterns in Caribbean patois and a mixture of English and French as she takes readers on a hopeful journey across continents.” —Booklist, starred review, a Best New Book of the Week
“Thoroughly satisfying…This bighearted narrative of love, loss, and family is handled with grace and beauty.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A Million Aunties is an exquisite novel about beauty and pain, and what binds us together. Through captivating character studies, quiet lovely writing and deceptively simple storytelling, McKenzie illuminates basic commonalities and rethinks what family and home mean.” —Shelf Awareness