SWEETNESS IN THE SKIN

A Jamaican girl seeks happiness and her place in the world, one baked good at a time.

Pumkin Patterson’s story starts when she’s 11, a bright student and the apple of her Auntie Sophie’s eye. Sophie lives with her half-sister—the resentful Paulette—Pumkin, and Pumkin’s beloved grandmother. Sophie and Paulette have a volatile relationship, impaired by Paulette’s belief that her mother favors the lighter-skinned and status-conscious Sophie. Sophie and Pumkin dream of escaping their deteriorated home in a disadvantaged Kingston neighborhood to live in France. When Sophie eventually goes to France, she promises to send for Pumkin as soon as she establishes herself. Pumkin is left with her neglectful and intermittently violent mother—the death of her grandmother and the reappearance of her repulsively reptilian father don’t help matters. The girl’s chance to move to France and attend school there depends on her ability to pass a French-language proficiency exam, but her efforts to accomplish this are thwarted by Paulette at every opportunity. Pumkin’s talents for entrepreneurship and baking serve her in good stead as she develops a devoted clientele in the neighborhood and at school. Her hard-won confectionary earnings might allow for test prep and registration for the all-important exam as well as a crucial measure of independence. Debut novelist Robinson explores themes of class rivalry, racism, postcolonial damage, and self-determination…all through the eyes and ears of a teenage baking wizard as the adults who cross Pumkin’s path articulate personal grievances or explanations of the status quo in Pumkin’s corner of Jamaica. This coming-of-age story employs extensive dialogue in Jamaican dialect, a sincere tone, and a young person’s perspective on class differences within a relatively small community (which may appeal to younger readers in search of their own escape plans).

Sympathetic storytelling leavened with humor.