Notes from a Writer's Book of Cures and Spells

by Marcia Douglas

Flamingo, a young writer in Jamaica, finds herself enmeshed in the world of her fictional characters in this inspiring and poetic novel about hope and the ravages of recent Jamaican economic and social upheavals. When poverty, emigration, and political turmoil in the fictional world oblige Flamingo's characters to disperse, the one-eyed protagonist Alva solicits Flamingo's help to bring them back together. The innovative novel is organized as a writers' notebook and sprinkled with recipes, herbal remedies, dream interpretations, and various other interjections evoking the culture and traditions of Jamaica.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2005

Reviews

[Belle Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love love this book. Read it ages ago, and while I don't remember many specifics of it, I remember that I adored it.

[Ceallaigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘Share mi yu wisdom’, I write on my palm. Old Grand takes my hand in his and reads it, traces the ink with a tamarind finger. ‘Gather your words, and don't give up,’ he says. ‘Watch the snail, she knows how. She is not the swiftest of women, but she hears a voice and circles the kitchen, leaves her story shiny-shiny behind her.’”

TITLE—Notes from a Writer’s Book of Cures and Spells
AUTHOR—Marcia Douglas
PUBLISHED—2005
PUBLISHER—Peepal Tree Press

GENRE—literary fiction
SETTING—Jamaica
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—writing & the writing process, the responsibility of the author, orphans, ghosts & cemeteries, political violence, obeah & rootwork, Jamaican history & culture, ancestral guidance & inspiration, cultural knowledge & connection—lost & found, letters & journal entries, recipes, proverbs, spells, how the rituals of craft mirror the rituals of survival, dark themes including a few very tragic deaths

“She has come to observe your hand busy as a small bird, reminding her of a night long ago, when she leaned against a moonshine windowsill, scratching on wood and dry leaf with a pen stolen from Massa and marked with his initials. How she hungered for words then, devouring them wherever they could be found—the bottoms of cracked plates, the inside soles of shoes, the rims of old biscuit tins. She worked into the night, tiny letters like soldier ants, racing across bark.”

Summary:
“…this is a novel set at the cross-roads between the living and the dead… …in a world where dreams, spirit possession and women who become snails are just as real... This is not a story of straight lines, for with those, Flamingo discovers, you miss the crossings. With the smells of damp earth and Jamaica's healing herbs, the sounds of the songs that weave through the narrative, and illustrated with photographs of the dolls, and the sketches Flamingo cannot stop herself from adding to her notebooks margins, this is a novel to delight all the senses.”

My thoughts:
I had to read this twice before I could fully appreciate the project of the book but it was well worth the effort (it was actually pure pleasure) and I absolutely love the original conceptualization of writing. Douglas refracts off, quickly blurs & then refocuses on before turning upside down such questions as Why do we write? About whom do we write? What is our responsibility as writers? How does ritual play a role in a writer’s work? She explores the intersections between writing and manifestation, writing and salvation, & writing and witnessing.

Part I felt like Alice in Wonderland for a writer. Part II was more earthbound—grittier, undeniably real. Part III is where the different threads are getting tangled up and worked apart again. Part IV is the green sprouting of something new, a hopeful growth, real transformation.

And deeper within these Parts, were many more layers. There was the author’s or main narrator’s (who is not necessarily the author since they do have a distinct name: “Flamingo Tongue”) thoughts and processes as a writer. Then there are the characters of their stories who are real in a way that demonstrates the irrelevance of that reality conforming to any kind of pre-existent expectations or understandings regarding that concept. The characters exist in *all* worlds—both the specific one in which dwell the writer and their subjects, as well as the collective human world—and are perceived and reacted to, treated and listened to, and, especially, offered agency in a myriad of different ways.

Another layer is in the writing style and form of the book that utilizes a lot of spellbook-, hoodoo-, diary-, recipe-, grimoire-, proverb-type language in the characterization, scene setting, and even exposition in each section across all the voices present in the story/s.

I kept reaching for fairy tale parallels as well but the grey area was so thick that I think the only similarity is in how fairy tales are sometimes more of a derivative form of traditional knowledge so really the worldview and epistemology active in this book is of more of a formative even practical nature off from which fairy and folk lore might then be extrapolated in order to inform or educate the story-maker’s audience. It definitely comes right up to the overlap between the story-makers and the story-holders. The project of this book specifically looks at the role and responsibility (and process) of the story-maker and thinks very critically about the relationship between the writer and their subject/s.

This was also such a perfect follow up to MY BROTHER by Jamaica Kincaid which raised a lot of these questions among many of our bookclub members during our discussion. 👀

I would recommend this book to readers who are also writers or who enjoy reading about the deeper issues re: writing / being a writer. This book is best read at least twice. It’s short though! Only 150 pages including illustrations & photographs.

Final note: This ultimately felt like a writer’s grimoire which is just so brilliant. I’ll be keeping this one close.

“I run like cane fire, testifying and cursing, prophesying and talking dirty, words flying behind me all the way to the sea.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Season: firefly season

CW // violent bullying (stoning), gun violence, very graphic: death—including a child’s death, the murder of parents, suicide (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
- KRIK? KRAK! by Edwidge Danticat
- WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
- MY BROTHER by Jamaica Kincaid
- MULES AND MEN by Zora Neale Hurston
- ON A WOMAN’S MADNESS by Astrid Roemer
- VENCO by Cherie Dimaline
- WHITE MAGIC by Elissa Washuta

Favorite Quotes—
“…but for all my writing, I have not found her.”

“I take the pen from behind my ear…”

“Out in the yard, the sky is indigo as I shake the kitchen mat. I grip the corners like the reins of a chariot, my arms rising up and down. A slice of onion translucent as moon's skin falls to my feet and the little holes in the sky glisten like the wet sieve hanging over the sink; ground nutmeg and yellow cornmeal fill the air. Inside the asleep house, I spread the mat, a clean Orion, in front of the stove.”

“She motions to me, ‘Shhh,’ and points to her legs, all lit up with words in the moonshine. She lifts up her skirt and carefully pulls the skin off each leg, just as if it is a pair of sheer stockings. Underneath there is new skin - smooth and poreless and waiting. She hands me the skins and says, ‘Put them on.’ I know from experience not to disobey her, but still I protest: ‘My legs not long like yours.’ ‘Shush!’ she whispers, and I quickly pull the sheer skins onto my legs, the words stretching around my knees over my thighs. With legs like these, I could seduce hurricanes, change the course of rivers and rename the seven seas. I could . . .”

“I am the woman who has been too long eating other people's language; my tongue is withered, words shrivelled inside of me.”

“Place your Alva doll on a windowsill facing east. Feed her honey and almonds and coconut jelly. Tie a red ribbon around your pen. Do not lift your hand from the page; do not pause to slap the mosquito on your neck. Write until her eyes flood with tears.”

“She knew how to mix memory with imagination so that it didn't matter which was which.”

“They stoned Alva—Gordon and his two women friends—turned from their own power and afraid of hers.”

“I know your kind—writing is a cover for necromancy.”

“…and how was I to understand the difference between death and ecstasy.”

“She had moons on her fingernails which she said she stole from the sky at night when God wasn't looking. I remember lying in bed and dreaming of the star I would take from God, just like Willa. I would place it on my tongue, light exploding sweet and sour in my mouth.”

“Be a stone for a day. Sit by the side of the road. People might think you mad, but be still. Listen to the ground beneath you; your back, a resting place for a lizard's belly.”

“…but just like the memory of stones, if you chase fault back far enough, it disappears every time—into the sea as salt.”

“The cemetery was a crossroads for the living and the dead and sometimes, it was difficult to tell which was which.”

“Don't bother ask me why don't bother ask me why don't bother ask me why.”

“Madda pointed out rare snails by the side of the road. Madda had kept company with snails all her life and knew many of them to be tired women who come up with ways to take a break from the cooking and cleaning and all the things in the world which break their backs and their spirits. For every day in Jamaica there are women who can't take it any more; they hold up a long finger and say, ‘hold on deh,’ and then go outside and take a deep breath and sink all the way into a beautiful whorling shell which has been carefully hidden beneath their hair. Snail time is slow time because snails claim permission to just please themselves, one hasty minute to others, experienced as a whole hour to them. When snail women have had enough, they crawl out to the roadside and return to human self, take a deep breath, then walk back to the house to calm the children, or to finish the conversation with the husband left at the kitchen table, or to slip into the back pew to hear out the preacher and his foolishness.”

“Still, every now and then someone came calling to buy a dose of Madda's roots, for always there were bottles of various sizes displayed on a table on the verandah, the labels with names like chaney root, raw moon, leaf-of-life, sinkle bible, ram goat roses, god-bush, search-mi-heart. This one will cure block up sinus; that one will give yu strong heart; take this if yu have sex problem; and see that one in the tall bottle? Drink it only if yu want pregnant and mix it good with red beet, especially if yu want the baby to healthy. That one in the soda bottle will clear up morning sickness, but if the baby father ugly, don't bother ask me to make him pickney pretty. The customers left with their precious bottle of something huddled under their arm; Madda Shilling calling, ‘Walk good, yu hear?’ their backs disappearing through the narrow gate.”

“Sometimes I draw Alva putting on lipstick under the mango tree or Mama threading her needle on Madda Shilling's verandah, Daddy holding up a rum bottle of honey to the sun. In all the picture-them, Madda Shilling watching from the window, or the side of the house or the chicken coop; Made in China making a monkey face and me making one back, and always bougainvillea falling everywhere, filling all the white space.”

“‘Characters have a way of taking over,’ she says. I glance at her then keep on writing. ‘Give Alva your pen so she can find her way back home.’ Sister takes the lollipop from her mouth and offers me a lick. It tastes like brown sugar and pineapple. I give it back to her and she skips into the yard and disappears. Much as I care about Alva, I cannot leave her with my pen. What if she frightens Girl or steals my skin? I want out of this story. I want to find the way to the back gate.”

“Work into the night mi love -
letters small and tight -
until the moon, eating her own flesh,
disappears.”

“The time has come to pay respect to the muse for it is she who has guided you here thus far. Honor the history of your craft and make her doll with special care, tracing her back one chosen word at a time.”

“Do not lift your hand from the page… Most of all, do not worry about the crocodile eyeing from the other side of the river. Cut your eye, spit over your shoulder, and keep on writing. You must write until there is no more ink left in your pen.”

“…for it is your busy hand that keeps Sister breathing, and whatever you do, you must not lose her, Write write write her name over and over, bringing her back to the next morning, her fingers stained night blue and hidden in shallow pockets against her thighs.”

“Bloody nails dig into your skin now, and you want out of this story, as far away as you can possibly hide. You almost dash your pen to the ground, but then for one brief moment, Sister's eyes meet yours. Remember a woman who got stuck in story, wandered around and around and never came back?”

“In the square of the hand-mirror, glance back down the path from which you came.”

“…but this is not that story.”

“As you enter the yard, the little ball unravels behind you, expanding in the wind like a long red cloth. Fold it carefully before you enter the house; then write your name in the middle of your hand. Trace the lines of your palm, crisscrossed and dusty. Call yourself out loud—hear how your voice has changed.”

“Small birds lined up on a cable wire mark the edge of the world…”

“At the edge of the world, the roofs tilt lop-side and fiction is strange and truth stranger and knives and forks do not always match.”

“The truth is the sea is full of stories and sometimes stories taste like salt.”

“…all my years turning like pages, my breath slowing and quickening to the rhythm of the text.”

[Nanako Water · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun, different little book which took me to a very different place - Jamaica. I enjoyed the imaginative stories, sentences that morphed into unexpected turns, sparse but rich characters, and especially the crazy names. thanks, Marcia Douglas for a memorable ride as a writer. This got my own creative wheels turning.

[Jherane Patmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange and experimental. I like it.

[2TReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was truly unique, and I loved it.

[Shivanee Ramlochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any book by Marcia Douglas, the echoes of her exploratory, percussive prose linger. This is a book about writers, about writing, and the liminal, haunted spaces between. It would be worth it if only for the ways women turn into snails within these pages, yet it is so much more than that singular magic. I begin to be convinced that everything Douglas offers us is a kind of portable magic.

[Nia Dragin · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting and thoughtful, never read anything like this before