Fitting into One’s Skin: A
Review of Joanne Hillhouse’s Oh Gad!
published in The Antigua and Barbuda
Review of Books, 2014
Althea Romeo-Mark, BA, MA
Oh Gad!
is Antiguan writer, Joanne Hillhouse’s third novel. Published by Strebor books/Atria/Simon
& Schuster, USA, in 2012, it
consists of 414 pages. Previous novels include The Boy from Willow Bend (Hansib Publications Ltd. UK, 2009) and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight
(MacMillan, 2004).
Oh Gad! explores themes of alienation, “outsiderness,” and abandonment which
are dramatized by central characters, Niki Baltimore, her father, Professor
Baltimore and lastly, Aeden Cameron. Secondary themes include (1) a volatile
mix of Antiguan politics, local socio-cultural history and the expanding
tourism sector: The clash of interests is played out by the characters Hensen J
Stephens, a local politician, Kendrick (Cam) Cameron, a wealthy, white,
Lebanese-Antiguan business man, and
finally, Tanty and her daughter Sadie, who are agricultural workers and preservers
of Antiguan history and customs; (2) there are the relationships of the Hughes family
who preserve the pottery-making tradition on Sea View Farm and are conflicted
by secrets and jealousy and; (3) the challenges
of father/daughter/and father/son relationships are delved into.
The themes alienation, “outsiderness” and abandonment
are particularly highlighted in the relationship between Nikki and her father.
Their personal failings are linked to their isolation and separation from family.
The sacrifices
made by parents, with good intentions, have burdened a generation of children
who are lost and trying to get a foothold in a world that seems unaccepting. This
is a theme this is carried over from Hillhouse’s novel, The Boy from Willow Bend.
A recent report made by UICEF/ Barbados
effectively captures the extent to which migration continues to affect Caribbean
children. “…These mobile societies places
children at risk and jeopardize the safety and wellbeing of migrant children as
well as children left behind by one or both parents who have migrated (Impact
of Migration on Children in the Caribbean, p.2, UNICEF/Barbados).”1
The study on the impact on
migration on children by Unicef/Barbados finds:
Children left behind as well as migrant children constitute a particular
vulnerable group. The impact of parents‟ migration on children can be
devastating as it threatens the long-term well-being and development of
Caribbean adolescents into adulthood. Children affected by migration face
several challenges in terms of education and health care as well as various
psychosocial problems. Many children left behind suffer from depressions, low
self-esteem which can lead to behavioural problems, and at increased risk of
poor academic performance as well as interruption of schooling. (The Impact of Migration on Children in the Caribbean, p.2)2
Given the relevance of this
subject for societies on the islands today
Oh Gad! and The Boy from Willow Bend, places immigrant parents and children under the microscope. The desire for economic
and social improvement has old roots. “A
lot of us went over there back then, you know.
Cutting cane and such (Oh Gad!, p.37).” However, such choices left offspring in psychological limbo. “A lot of their people coming back now,
though the truth be told, some of them that coming can’t rightly claim any people
here. That’s just the passport (Oh Gad!, p.37).” Their children’s lives ebb
and flow on the sea of abandonment and uncertainty. We learn at the end of each novel whether or
not the central characters, Nikki and Vere are rescued or left psychologically
and culturally adrift.
The
Birthing of “Outsiderness”
While The
Boy from Willow Bend is set only in Antigua , Oh Gad! takes place in Antigua and New York. Nikki Baltimore becomes an outsider when she, a child, is sent to New York by her mother, Violete Hughes (Mami Vi). Mami
Vi has little or no education, but dreams that her child, Nikki, will be better
off with her father, Professor Winston Baltimore, an unaffectionate,
controlling academic with whom Nikki had little or no previous ties.
Vere Joseph Camino,
the central character in The boy from
Willow Bend, is left with relatives by his mother who flees to USA to
escape her abusive father, Franklin, and seek a better life. She remits money,
but never visits. “She had said she was
only going for a while, but that was years and years ago (The Boy from Willow
Bend, p.14).” Vere, too, becomes a
victim of his grandfather’s abuse, and longs to be reunited with his mother
despite being looked after by a series of surrogate mothers.
Nikki Baltimore,
(Oh Gad!) flies to Antigua to attend
her mother, Mami Vi’s, funeral. Mami Vi remains a conundrum to Nikki, who only
spent her childhood summers on the island. Nikki is accompanied by her
well-adjusted, almost perfect, older sister, Jasmine (Jazz) Baltimore. Jazz is Professor
Baltimore’s oldest child, as well as Nikki’s best friend and confidant.
Nicki
felt she was incapable of enjoying herself and did not fit anywhere. She returns to visit her mother at the age of
six already concerned that she was an outsider. She remembers being picked up at the airport
by her brothers who were dusty and smelled of coal and who never spoke to her.
Upon arriving at Sea View Farm, she meets her mother and changes her clothes.
She then “goes back outside to hang
around the periphery of their loud conversation (Oh Gad!, p.24).” She is the summer visitor and siblings tiptoe
around her. Special treatment by Mami Vi guarantees that
everyone is jealous.
As
an adult, her mother’s death, suddenly throws her into their midst and the claws
are out. She is prey to her older
sister, Audrey, for whom she is family and fiend. She tells Audrey that she has
“felt, [her] whole life, like [she] was
seeing things from behind a pane of glass….didn’t feel connected to here, to
Mama Vi’s, to my father. All I’m trying
to do is get inside, get inside something (Oh Gad!, p.263).”
Nikki,
upon seeing Mami Vi again at the age of six describes her as “stately as the date palm under which they
were huddled…and she felt she was in the shade of a huge tree…She wasn’t a soft
woman, given to endearment….a hard life and the burden of raising six children
with no reliable support has seen to that (Oh Gad!, pp.23-24).
To
her brothers and sisters, she was the strange child that visited and was
treated like a fragile object. Audrey did not spare Nikki her tongue-lashing, neither
as a child nor an adult:
Hate you? Girl.
I don’t waste time thinking ‘bout you. Comin’ ‘round here like some queen.
Thought Mammy had sense ‘til she start sniffing after that “Professor” and
allow him to blow her mind with big talk. Better than everyone. That one raise
you the same. Sendin’ you back here when he wanted to be rid of you, with your
little uptight ways, and with your “I don’t eat this, don’t do that ways.” She
treating you like some queen because you was his, and smadee laka he bother fu
gi she the time of day (Oh
Gad!, p.60).
Reacting to the
tongue-lashing, Nikki defends herself and asserts her right to lay down her
roots in her birthplace. “But I can’t
change the past…that Mami Vi sent me away, that was her choice…that maybe I
don’t belong here. Well, if that’s what it is, that’s what it is. But, I’m choosing to come back now, and
that’s still not good enough for you. Well then, to hell with it. I’m not asking your permission (Oh Gad!, p.
61).”
Audrey appears to relish Nikki’s misadventures:
Me nah
fooly like Bell, know, fu get all excited because she now remember she have
people; people she never pay nuh min ‘til now. Besides, she go learn soon
enough… But she just swell up enough in she own importance fu feel flattered at
all de courting and all de bullshit. And
is we supposed to be unsophisticated (Oh Gad!, p. 59).
Returning
to Antigua as an adult:
….always twisted [Nikki] up, mostly because like New
York, it didn’t feel like home. Nowhere did. But while in New York she could
lose herself in that alien feeling; here everything was so uncomfortably close.
Everyone so‘familiar.’ The disorientation wasn’t helped by the vague sense of
knowing coiled inside her; Antigua was a place she didn’t quite remember, but
hadn’t really forgotten (Oh
Gad!, p.7).
Nikki mentions that her
ignorance of colloquialism “was in fact,
one of the things that still kept her outside the community; the way people
said without really saying, knowing that the meaning was clear, if you were
truly part of things (Oh Gad!, p.367).”
Her
feelings about her father also “twisted her up.” Nikki describes her father as “a big, bushy bear of a man who never
hugged, in fact barely touched her, whose conversation was filled with lessons
and verbal lacerations. A man who told her he was her father, but never taught
her what family was (Oh Gad!, p.21).” Sunday morning breakfast, which
consisted of saltfish, antroba, Antigua- made bread with hot cocoa, was their
ritual. She noted that it was the only
bit of Antigua left in him (Oh Gad!, p.63).
A prisoner of his strictness and inflexibility, she was uncomfortable,
stifled in his presence. She describes
her limbs as “burning and her insides
shaking with effort…she wanted to run away from him and his razor sharp tongue
[but was unable] to build suitable armour against it, much less fight back (Oh
Gad!, p. 64).”
In his journal, her father describes her
mother as ‘everything I have never been:
independent, artistic, curious and opinionated…she’s not literate…or widely
knowledgeable; she’s ignorant of life beyond this village…She’s a very
political being…She intrigues me. She’s one of the most remarkable women I’ve
ever known, callused and muddied hands,
bead tie, worn dress and all…(Oh Gad!, p.167-68).”
Professor
Baltimore, realizing his own alienation, opens the door to a true relationship
with Nikki when he gives her his personal journals while attending Jazz’s
wedding in Antigua. It is the beginning of breaking down walls and Nikki gets
the courage to ask him why he sent for her.
He breaks the ice by telling her that she has her mother’s eyes and the
shape of her hands. “Your hands are soft,” he tells her, “hers had lived a
lifetime.” This tenderness brings tears to Nikki’s eyes. He goes on to explain that he was divorced
from his wife, Bernadine (Jazz’s mother) and thought he could make something of
Nikki, give her a chance and that her mother who wasn’t a sentimental woman had
seen the wisdom in it ( Oh Gad!,p.148). “Professor Baltimore states that… in the end…I think maybe I just wanted a
piece of her, and maybe she wanted to give me that. Between us, words were
difficult (Oh Gad!, p. 148).
In
addition to the journal and the relationship she builds with Marisol, the local
church musician who befriends her, Nikki is able to get a better picture of her
parents
Play
Mamas
Marisol,
the village busy-body, who Nikki shuns when they first meet, turns out to be a
knowledgeable and comforting companion.
She plays an important role in Nikki learning about her past, takes
Nikki under her wing like a fairy Godmother and invites her for drinks and a
chat. She watches over Nikki when she converses with Mami Vi during her
frequent graveside visits. These visits
allow Nikki to have conversations with her departed mother away from the
scrutiny and scorn of her elder sister, Audrey.
Nikki
and Marisol had first met at her mother’s funeral reception. Marisol Adams (Ms. Mary) is introduced as “a persistent sixty-ish looking woman in a
burgundy wig…whose rough contralto had led the choir as her fingers abused the
piano (Oh Gad!, p. 36).” What caught Nikki’s attention was Marisol’s
knowledge of her parents’ relationship. Like a local griot, Marisol recorded
all she heard and saw. Marisol
introduced herself as the “village
archivist [who] clipped stories of anything having to do with the local
community (Oh Gad! p. 39).”
Marisol
is not a surrogate mother, but she is a good listener and is genuinely
concerned about Nikki’s welfare. Nikki learns to appreciate the woman she had
wanted to get rid of at her mother’s funeral.
Marisol had started “the habit of
waiting for her up at the church while she visited her mother, inviting her
down afterwards for a sip of whatever fruit juice [sour sap or guava ]was on ice (Oh Gad!, p.123).”
Unlike
Nikki, who is surrounded by family, but alienated by those from whom she seeks
acceptance, Vere (The Boy from Willow
Bend) is watched over by a group of surrogate mothers. He
is raised by Tanty, his grandfather Franklin’s barren wife, who has had the
burden of bringing up some of her husband’s illegitimate children. Tanty
insures that the money sent by Vere’s mother is used for his education despite
his grandfather’s disapproval.
Hovering
on the edge of his life is the neighbor, Mrs. Buckley, with whom he spends time
during Tanty’s absence. Described as “the
busybody type you didn’t need to send for
(The Boy from Willow Bend, p. 36),” she also becomes, a substitute
mother since she was one not “to shirk
her Christian duty (The Boy from Willow Bend, p. 36).”
June,
Vere’s aunt and Franklin’s illegitimate daughter, walks irregularly in and out
of his life, he grows to depend on her. Until June’s arrival, Vere’s
practically only constant companions were the Buckley children. June had been
deserted by her mother who had left for Chicago as well. Unschooled and shucked
from home to home, Tanty’s door was her latest stop in a series of revolving
doors.
After
Vere’s grandfather head-butts Mr. Buckley, Vere’s bond to that family is
severed. He develops a relationship with Makeba, a young Rastafarian woman, who
lives in the nearby bush with her husband, Djimon and other “dreads.” Makeba introduces
him to “Jah music.” She talks “to him as if he was an adult,” and asks
him questions like “What you want to do
with your life?” Makeba urges him to study and “for her he kept up. Because he likes to fantasize that she was his
mother, or his girlfriend, or his sister (The Boy from Willow Bend, p . 74).”
Despite all of these “surrogate mothers,” who have
helped to guide Vere’s path, there is still a hole in his life—his missing
mother. That hole was filled with loneliness
and inklings of abandonment until her return after her father’s death.
Finding
Her Footing
Nikki left
New York unhappy in her job and relationship with Terry, her boyfriend, who “did not understand all the insecurities
that lived inside her (Oh Gad!, p. 42).” She is sucked in by the island’s
charm, the sudden pull of family, Antiguan culture, politics and its
power-play. The island offers her an
opportunity to polish untried skills and pave a new career. Stern-faced when confronting her enemies, she
quivers inside in regards to identity, self-worth, trust and happiness.
Her introduction to Antiguan
politics and elite takes her into dangerous waters. She is offered a high
position by politician, Hensen J. Stephens. This leads to in-office jealousy
and distain. She first finds herself in social hot water when her appointment
to the Department of Tourism is linked to an affair with married politician
Hensen J. Stevens. At first, recklessly in love, she finds out she was being
used and lied to and has a moral crisis.
She “dumps the entire Henson chapter of her life in the garbage (Oh
Gad!, p 193).” After living in shame-faced limbo, she is offered a way out and
takes a job with Kendrik Cameron. Nikki
becomes the spokesperson for a huge tourism development project which attracts
nay-sayers and opposition politicians as it deprives the ordinary people of the
land they had worked on for generations, and interrupts their way of life. Her
job, to convince them of its advantages, is a challenging one and a political
hot potato. She is thrown to media wolves.
Although Nikki remains outside
her family circle, Antiguan Culture and relationships in general, for a long
time, she is accepted into the fold after breaking down family barriers and surviving
Audrey’s verbal fire and brimstone. During this struggle to acclimatize to
Antiguan society, family, and cope with personal baggage, her interaction with
others, positive and negative, gives her an opportunity to better understand
herself and those important in her daily life.
In Oh Gad! Nikki is not alone in her
feeling of alienation. Like Nikki, her father, Professor Winston Baltimore, and
Aiden Cameron, are also cultural and social misfits, who are learning to fit
into their skin.
On a visit to New York, her father
presents her with an album. It is his
first gift to her and is accompanied by his revelation of family history. Nikki
learns that her white grandfather had abandoned Professor Baltimore and his
mother and that she had raised him alone and isolated from other children. He
tells Nikki that his “mother hated her
life, hated herself, maybe hated me a little, hated Antigua, hated the man she
never spoke of and whom I always believed had paid at least in part, for our
exodus from the island. My mother, I believe, is what ignited my quest for
learning, and my desire to unravel the mysteries of the ways we are… (Oh
Gad!, p. 314).” By speaking about his mother, her father reveals his own
“outsiderness,” why he is the way he is, and Nikki for the first time, sees a
little of herself in him.
It is this characteristic
“outsiderness” that attracts Nikki to Aeden. Nikki viewed him as a marijuana-smoking
misfit when they first met. The son of a Kendrick Cameron, he is a minority
among black Antiguans and “wan’ be the
kind of man [Nikki] not scared to love (Oh Gad!, p.336). Both bond over their “daddy issues.” He detests
people who show him respect because of his color, his father’s money and luck
of birth. He attempts to negate his father’s wealth and wishes to be one of the
people. However, Aeden stands out because of the very things he resents. He
admits to Nikki that he “fought the
conditioning…rebel without a cause. Move
with the people who not no worse than me, just worse off, like it was a
mission. But blood is blood and much as Daddy disappointed in me, much as he
and Mammy all; me no wan’ be them, you know (Oh Gad!, p. 339).” But with
Nikki’s support he is determined to break away, find his own niche in Antigua
by starting his own business.
Nikki admits to Aeden that “she wasn’t as perfect or secure in herself as she affected and maybe
I wasn’t as imperfect as I felt (Oh Gad!, p. 338).” Like Aeden she comes to
terms with life’s contradictions. “I am
thinking about how I invested so much time in not being my father’s daughter,
in feeling disconnected from my mother, and in trying to fix other people. And
it’s all bullshit. I am my father’s daughter. My mother was always with me
(Oh Gad!, p. 339).” She finds at least that she can live with herself, her new
life, family, new love and imperfect soul mate, Aeden Cameron.
Conclusion
In the end, the
characters, Nikki, her father, Professor Baltimore, and Aeden , who found
themselves floundering in the river of “outsiderness,” evolve. A better grasp of family history enables them
to unearth the source of their doubts and overcome insecurity. They become confident, happy people, ready to
challenge the world. Like them, Vere, who battled the same fears, (The Boy From Willow Bend) is saved by
his mother’s arrival in Antigua. He also begins to fit into his skin.
I identify with Nikki, the
central character, because I come from generations of immigrants and am still
an immigrant. I was “the fish out of
water,” at the age of eight and literally “the alien.” But I believe her
experience was much more traumatic as she was separated from her family at a
tender age, a critical time of life, when bonding with one’s parent is
essential to one’s identity, feeling of security and self-worth. Many have
walked in her shoes. It is the resulting
feelings of alienation, loneliness and exclusion with which I particularly
empathize. The need to belong somewhere, the need to fit in, is a haunting
experience. Belonging comes with only acceptance and inclusion.
The story’s pace is slow at
the beginning. Perhaps it was impatience
on my part. But once Nikki Baltimore arrives in Antigua the pace picks up and
the “outsider” in me begins to wring my hands with each initiation into island
life, with each personal and political foray and fiery, familial baptisms and sudden
immersion in Antiguan dialect.
I felt the
portrayal of Antiguan dialect was authentic except for some parts of Audrey’s
speech. For example, Audrey use of words
like “flattered,” and “unsophisticated,” were out of character.
“Besides, she go learn soon enough… But
she just swell up enough in she own importance fu feel flattered at all de courting
and all de bullshit. And is we supposed
to be unsophisticated (Oh Gad!, p. 59).” I am of the impression that Audrey
was not well educated and would have chosen other words. On the other hand, the author might have had
a much wider audience in mind and did not wish to alienate that readership.
There are more than enough
Caribbean novels that delve into Caribbean history. Oh Gad is about modern Antigua, the effect of
separation of families on their children and the modern world of human
relationships.
Footnotes
1. Caroline Bakker, Martina Elings-Pels and
Michele Reis, The Impact of Migration on Children in the Caribbean,
UNICEF Office for Barbados and Eastern
Caribbean, Paper No 4, August
2009. http://www.unicef.org/barbados/Impact_of_Migration_Paper.pdf
2. Caroline Bakker, Martina Elings-Pels and
Michele Reis, The Impact of Migration on Childrenin the Caribbean,UNICEF Office
for Barbados and Eastern Caribbean, Paper
No 4, August 2009. http://www.unicef.org/barbados/Impact_of_Migration_Paper.pdf
Bibliography
Joanne Hillhouse. Oh
Gad!. Strebor/Atria/Simon&Schuster. USA. 2012
Joanne Hillhouse. The
Boy from Willow Bend. Hansib Publications Ltd. UK. 2009
http://www.unicef.org/barbados/Impact_of_Migration_Paper.pdf
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