Where do I BEGIN? I'm astounded by the chops it took the incomparable Maisy Card to come up with this complex family tale. The more I think about what happened between these pages, the more I discover. Card's storytelling is that of a master. Though I initially questioned if I liked the ending since there wasn't much closure, I decided that the question was really if I understood the journey the book had taken me because there was so much to unpack. The family tree provided at the beginning came in handy.

Each chapter represents a different member of the extended Paisley clan as they grew up in and fled Jamaica for either England or the US. The POVs change again and again, jumping backward and forward through time finding several characters at different life stages. At first, it seems like Abel is the protagonist and the family patriarch, but his life choices make for a much more complicated dissection of the plot.

What in other books would be the big reveal, here took place in the first chapter as Abel gathers his progeny to speak his truth. He'd been living for years under an assumed name, that of a friend who died on a worksite they were working on together. The company had mistaken his friend Stanford Solomon for Abel and so the real Abel was able to walk away from the life he'd made with his first wife Vera, and ventured to the US with his new wife Adele. In near-present day NYC he reveals himself to his American-born daughter and granddaughter and his first Jamaican daughter who he was able to beckon by hiring her services as a home health aide.

From there the title becomes more obvious as Caribbean superstitions and lore integrate with the realism to create a bizarre and intoxicating landscape full of betrayals and sadness. If while reading you find yourself wondering after the validity of some of the character's memories, good. If you also find yourself questioning your own sanity & understanding — all the better.