Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Augustown

"If a man flies in Jamaica, and only the poor will admit to seeing it, has he still flown?"

Well I've never read a book quite like this. You can tell Miller is a poet, and the prose is honestly stunning.

(Read for StoryGraph's 2024 Read the World Challenge. Prompt: Jamaica)

Content Warnings

alexhaydon's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

I don’t recall the last time I read a book with writing so alive. Miller’s writing is incredibly immersive, and atmospheric to a point where my reactions to the setting and story became visceral. No word was wasted. Each character had a deeper story so expertly weighted and placed that by the final chapters, the story’s infrastructure ended in a climax so powerful in image and in meaning. One of the best reads in years, looking forward to more of Miller’s work.

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spinesinaline's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As the author says in the intro, August Town is a real-life neighbourhood in Jamaica and while some of its real history is brought into the story, the titular neighbourhood is an intentionally fictional entity. From the first scene, you can feel the tension is this town building towards some unfortunate climax. We slowly get to know the characters as Ma Taffy reveals the spiritual and painful history of the town that has led to this moment, jumping in time and from perspective to perspective, each with a different view of the town and the trouble to come.

Along with the storytelling by Ma Taffy, there is an unseen narrator who seems to have a complete view of the town and I loved the way the author creatively uses this narrator to guide the story. It’s a heavy, sad read but one that creates such a stunning picture of this town, both real and fictional, and the people who may share these stories. This was a highlight read of the year and one I’m sure I will return to.

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chattie_the_mad_chatter's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book is a different genre to what I usually read. It felt like folklore, local history to a country and culture I know nothing about, so I appreciate being able to learn and be let in through reading this.
I enjoyed the story craft, through storytelling and weaving in and out of past and present and through different characters. There is a main plot point that holds them together, but if you enjoy a linear story or a strong connection to a protagonist this may not be for you. I felt that Augstown was our main protagonist and the different characters the layers of history and lives that make it who it is. All the individual human characters felt fully realised, but we moved fluidly through them getting segments of their lives. I am a reader that likes to fully immerse in a character, so I did not get that emotionsl connection I usually want with the characters.
But that was not the story's purpose.

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nannahnannah's review against another edition

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4.0

I would love to learn creative writing from one of Kei Miller’s courses … the way he brings everything together in the end of a book, the way he ties oral storytelling styles with writing ones, and the way he can create a satisfying ending even through unhappy or bittersweet events is masterful. Even if the actual bulk of the novel wasn’t the most enjoyable thing to read, it’s undeniable that this man has talent.

Representation:
- the protagonists are Jamaican, most of whom are Jamaican Rastafarians

In Augustown, Jamaica, Ma Taffy may be blind, but she still sees more than anyone else. When her great-nephew, Kaia, comes home after school in tears because his teacher shaved off his locs, she tells him the story of the flying preacherman and the beginning of Rastafari.

With the help of this review, I learned a lot more about this book’s setting and background. I’m going to very briefly summarize what Chrissie says, but I strongly recommend that you check out her review. The flying preacherman from the story Ma Taffy tells Kaia is Andrew Bedward (1848-1930), a Jamaican preacher whose followers later became Rastafarians. He was born in the parish in which the real August Town exists today. Again, I highly recommend you read that review for its insights. As she says, this is not only a book about the past, but also one about the present, about the repetition of history and the violent, cruel, and heartbreaking history in particular of August Town/Augustown.

As for my own thoughts, I was very, very drawn to the way Kei Miller writes (obviously), although at times I felt it did bog down the flow by an over-reliance on telling and redundancies--and even talking down to the reader, even if all of this fits with the kind of oral storytelling style he seemed to go for.

Ma Taffy’s “blind but sees all” disability cliche bothered me a little, as well as her seemingly superior abilities (walking quieter than the man nicknamed for being able to walk quietly, etc.), but again, the beauty of the writing and storytelling, especially when everything all came together in the very end, overcame any bad taste in my mouth. I just remember closing the book and feeling like I experienced something amazing.

This is an extremely vague review, I apologize for that; it’s been a little while since I finished this book, and even though I remember what happened, I’m just struck overall with that remaining awe of his writing and that ending. It’s tough to describe. And yet, I didn’t get that feeling till the end, and the middle of the book was difficult. I might have to read again sometime.

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shannabanana6's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a good book, very well written and very captivating plot, although also very intense. I really enjoyed how evident throughout the book that history and context were integral to the plot. And the reality of this magic that the Rastafari community holds within them is at the center of everything, despite/in spite of the whiteness and colonization trying to snuff it out. And at the end all the jumps through time and from character to character came together and made perfect sense.

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rworrall78's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Absolutely incredible. Poetic, magical (which isn't normally my thing) but in a very real and robust way. Full of really important history and a story of how oppression echoes and continues down the centuries, but told as a fictionalised version of August Town near where the author grew up. Tense and sad but also joyful and beautiful. I absolutely loved it and was left with so much to think about and to act on.

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kaneebli's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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