Strange Music
Laura Fish

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synopsis

In 1837, an ailing Elizabeth Barrett is confined to bed, suffering debilitating illness. Longing for a return to mobility, she corresponds with friends, endures uncomfortable remedies, writes poetry and frets over her father and siblings. On the Barrett estate in Jamaica a Creole maidservant named Kaydia is struggling to save her child from the abusive attentions of the master. In the cane fields, indentured labourer and former slave Sheba mourns the loss of her lover.

Moving from Torquay in Devon to Cinnamon Hill in Jamaica, Strange Music explores the notion that history consists of multiple, even contradictory, notions. Kaydia and Sheba narrate their stories in a distinctive patois. Like Jamaica, they struggle to escape a tragic past that seems ever present. Elizabeth is geographically and emotionally distant, at once consumed with domestic minutiae and, as she matures as a writer, painfully aware of the source of her wealth and privilege.

Laura Fish

was born in London in 1964 of Caribbean parents. She has lived in Southern Africa and Australia, and has held posts as a Creative Writing tutor at various universities including the University of East Anglia, where she recently completed a PhD in Creative Critical Writing. Her first novel, Flight of Black Swans, was published in 1995. She currently holds the RCUK Academic Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle.

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