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Long Time No See
Hannah Lowe’s father “Chick”, a half-Chinese, half-black Jamaican immigrant, worked long hours at night to support his family – except Chick was no ordinary working man. A legendary gambler, he would vanish into the shadows of East London to win at cards or dice, returning during the daylight hours to greet the daughter whose love and respect he courted.
In this poignant memoir, Lowe calls forth the unstable world of card sharps, confidence men and small-time criminals that eventually took its toll on Chick. She also evokes her father’s Jamaica, where he learned his formidable skills, and her own coming of age in a changing Britain.
Long Time No See speaks eloquently of love and its absence, regret and compassion, and the struggle to know oneself.
In this poignant memoir, Lowe calls forth the unstable world of card sharps, confidence men and small-time criminals that eventually took its toll on Chick. She also evokes her father’s Jamaica, where he learned his formidable skills, and her own coming of age in a changing Britain.
Long Time No See speaks eloquently of love and its absence, regret and compassion, and the struggle to know oneself.
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 2015
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415 people want to read
About the author
Hannah Lowe
34 books24 followersHannah Lowe is one of a generation of younger poets whose work celebrates the multicultural life of London and its environs in the eighties and nineties. She writes with a strong sense of place, voice, and emotional subtlety.
Lowe was born to an English mother and a Chinese/Jamaican father. She got her BA in American Literature at the University of Sussex, has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and is currently working towards a PhD in creative writing.
Lowe was born to an English mother and a Chinese/Jamaican father. She got her BA in American Literature at the University of Sussex, has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and is currently working towards a PhD in creative writing.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 3, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
The poet Hannah Lowe reads from her memoir about her Jamaican father and her relationship with him during her childhood in Essex. Using a notebook found after his death and letters and interviews with family, she recreates his childhood and young adult years in the decades before he met her mother.
Episode 1:
Jamaica, 1935: a young boy is repeatedly beaten by his Chinese father. Both man and boy are drawn to the throw of the dice. Decades later, a young woman in Ilford mourns the death of her gambling father.
Episode 2:
'Mum, am I half-caste ?' The author's parents were an unlikely combination - her mother a white, English teacher from Essex, and her father, twenty-three years older, an immigrant gambler from Jamaica.
Episode 3:
In Jamaica, a mother rejects her son. Years later, in Ilford, a daughter disavows her father. But the pull of home remains almost as strong as the lure of rice and peas or the throw of the dice.
Episode 4
A family trip to Jamaica reveals more of a family than anticipated.
Episode 5.
A young woman forges her own path. Chick dwindles before his family's eyes, but his daughter's gaze is focussed elsewhere.
Read by the author, Hannah Lowe, with recreated and imagined sections of Chick's life read by Colin Salmon.
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b063n3sw
The poet Hannah Lowe reads from her memoir about her Jamaican father and her relationship with him during her childhood in Essex. Using a notebook found after his death and letters and interviews with family, she recreates his childhood and young adult years in the decades before he met her mother.
Episode 1:
Jamaica, 1935: a young boy is repeatedly beaten by his Chinese father. Both man and boy are drawn to the throw of the dice. Decades later, a young woman in Ilford mourns the death of her gambling father.
Episode 2:
'Mum, am I half-caste ?' The author's parents were an unlikely combination - her mother a white, English teacher from Essex, and her father, twenty-three years older, an immigrant gambler from Jamaica.
Episode 3:
In Jamaica, a mother rejects her son. Years later, in Ilford, a daughter disavows her father. But the pull of home remains almost as strong as the lure of rice and peas or the throw of the dice.
Episode 4
A family trip to Jamaica reveals more of a family than anticipated.
Episode 5.
A young woman forges her own path. Chick dwindles before his family's eyes, but his daughter's gaze is focussed elsewhere.
Read by the author, Hannah Lowe, with recreated and imagined sections of Chick's life read by Colin Salmon.
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b063n3sw
August 15, 2015
Very much enjoyed this clever memoir, with fictionalised flashbacks to Hannah's father's Jamaican childhood and card-sharp low-life. Beautifully written, a poignant story of a girl never really feeling able to love her father unconditionally until it's too late. As I am trying to write about my father, I found it a book that I can only aspire to in its form and storytelling.
August 5, 2015
Listened to Hannah Lowe's book on Radio 4; wonderful memoir of her life and that of her father, Chick. Chick, born of Jamaican/Chinese parents, came to England and married his third wife (Hannah's mother). Full of fascinating details about Chick's childhood in Jamaica and his adult life in London, where he makes his money gambling. Hannah Lowe is a poet (pub by Bloodaxe) and it shows; she captures brilliantly, her complex and sometimes contradictory attitudes to Chick which engaged me emotionally right to the end, as did her observed attitudes of whites to migrants from The Caribbean.
October 15, 2015
This story is partly about Hannah's own childhood, growing up in a mixed race family. It also contains flashbacks to her father's abusive childhood in Jamaica. This for me was the more interesting part of the story. Her own childhood was unremarkable and I didn't feel merited a memoir. At points I got a bit confused about characters, mainly because of the jumping about nature of the story.
November 16, 2015
Breathtakingly honest and beautifully written memoir. I laughed and cried, and was transported from my dull journey to work to Jamaica, London, Santa Cruz... Wonderful.
February 20, 2017
Interesting story but boring writing. Lowe is the daughter of an English mother and a half Jamaican, half Chinese father. Here she tells the story of her upbringing, her father's past and more.
This was quite boring. Initially it sounded interesting: I've read bits and pieces about the Chinese in Jamaica and was curious to see how her father ended up in Great Britain to marry the author's mother and what it meant for the author. Some of it was quite fascinating: how her father dealt with being half Asian and half black, how the author navigated having a father whose skin color was different from hers, etc.
But overall it was very boring. Memoirs like this are tough: the author writes that some of the book is fiction (which was a bit of a disappointment but understandable given the circumstances for finding records, protecting privacy, etc.). She also chooses to split the story: alternating between her own and her father's. It's not a format I care for (I would have liked a more chronological retelling) but I suppose the author was trying to go for a parallel between the two tales.
I didn't find either story particularly compelling either, so that probably is part of it. I realize that these types of stories don't really have a "conflict" to solve necessarily but neither person was particularly interesting to read about. Interestingly enough I did read 'Finding Samuel Lowe' previously and wonder if there's any relation, however distant. That book (I thought) did a bit better, discussing some of the history, cultural context, etc. of the Chinese in Jamaica.
I won't lie, I regret buying this from the UK (as I live in the US) but it wasn't a book I was expecting to show up at my library or that would have been available as a bargain buy somewhere. It might be worth it if you can buy it cheap/it does show up in the library but I wouldn't rush out to read it.
This was quite boring. Initially it sounded interesting: I've read bits and pieces about the Chinese in Jamaica and was curious to see how her father ended up in Great Britain to marry the author's mother and what it meant for the author. Some of it was quite fascinating: how her father dealt with being half Asian and half black, how the author navigated having a father whose skin color was different from hers, etc.
But overall it was very boring. Memoirs like this are tough: the author writes that some of the book is fiction (which was a bit of a disappointment but understandable given the circumstances for finding records, protecting privacy, etc.). She also chooses to split the story: alternating between her own and her father's. It's not a format I care for (I would have liked a more chronological retelling) but I suppose the author was trying to go for a parallel between the two tales.
I didn't find either story particularly compelling either, so that probably is part of it. I realize that these types of stories don't really have a "conflict" to solve necessarily but neither person was particularly interesting to read about. Interestingly enough I did read 'Finding Samuel Lowe' previously and wonder if there's any relation, however distant. That book (I thought) did a bit better, discussing some of the history, cultural context, etc. of the Chinese in Jamaica.
I won't lie, I regret buying this from the UK (as I live in the US) but it wasn't a book I was expecting to show up at my library or that would have been available as a bargain buy somewhere. It might be worth it if you can buy it cheap/it does show up in the library but I wouldn't rush out to read it.
September 19, 2015
A story that I felt some vague connection to. A post war London upbringing although sometime after my own and a lost or failed father relationship with enormous regreets, doubts and outright anger that echoes my own, my sons & Chloe’s experience of father & child.
What was reviewing was the lack of identity and the shear outright fear of your father that Chin experiences being brought up a a mixed race child being brought up in prewar Caribbean. How any man could beat his own flesh and blood in that way is beyond my comprehension, although that level of anger is dot beyond my own experience.
The dual aspects of the story from Chin’s ear;y ;foe and from the aspect 60 years ;after of hid disaffected daughter worked well and you could see both side coming to this post death appreciation.
It was a well written and well research book that made you fell it could have been quite autobiographical.
A good recommendation for a book club read with a lot to discuss.
What was reviewing was the lack of identity and the shear outright fear of your father that Chin experiences being brought up a a mixed race child being brought up in prewar Caribbean. How any man could beat his own flesh and blood in that way is beyond my comprehension, although that level of anger is dot beyond my own experience.
The dual aspects of the story from Chin’s ear;y ;foe and from the aspect 60 years ;after of hid disaffected daughter worked well and you could see both side coming to this post death appreciation.
It was a well written and well research book that made you fell it could have been quite autobiographical.
A good recommendation for a book club read with a lot to discuss.
February 17, 2016
Having never read a memoir before I was apprehensive before reading. However I am very glad a decided to challenge myself to a new genre. As geographer I have always been interested in travel and migration therefore the story capturing the movements of young men from Jamaica was fastinating.
I have always wondered about racism in both the UK and USA and how this affected the migrants who had travelled to work in these area. This book deals very well with the issues and makes them clear.
The structure of the memoir is excellent it kept me interested from page to page it switches between Jamaica in the 1930s/40s and Essex in the 1980s/90s and tracks the movement of Hannah's dad as an immigrant to England in the 1940s. It was also interesting to learn about the underground betting etc. that occured within London as it's not often publicised.
Overall an excellent read!
I have always wondered about racism in both the UK and USA and how this affected the migrants who had travelled to work in these area. This book deals very well with the issues and makes them clear.
The structure of the memoir is excellent it kept me interested from page to page it switches between Jamaica in the 1930s/40s and Essex in the 1980s/90s and tracks the movement of Hannah's dad as an immigrant to England in the 1940s. It was also interesting to learn about the underground betting etc. that occured within London as it's not often publicised.
Overall an excellent read!
November 6, 2015
Another one of my first reads books, really well written, nice, believable, likeable characters.
Rather a nice story about a Chinese/Jamacian family living in Essex, part of the is written from the daughters point of view growing up in Essex and studying in America, and the other part is her fathers memories coming over from Jamaica, trying to find work, gambeling and trying to survive cancer. Its the story of family life, how not to take it for granted, to enjoy what you have, as it will be gone soon and too late to say what needs to be said.
Rather a nice story about a Chinese/Jamacian family living in Essex, part of the is written from the daughters point of view growing up in Essex and studying in America, and the other part is her fathers memories coming over from Jamaica, trying to find work, gambeling and trying to survive cancer. Its the story of family life, how not to take it for granted, to enjoy what you have, as it will be gone soon and too late to say what needs to be said.
July 27, 2018
A really interesting book. A book that at some point I wanted to put down initially but as I kept going it became more interesting and insightful. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
February 3, 2022
Moving account of growing up in Essex with a Jamaican father
A moving account of a young woman’s experiences of growing up as mixed race in a family of a white mother and a Chinese black Jamaican father. The book imagines the father’s early life in Jamaica, then coming over pre-Windrush to London and his life as a professional gambler with a sometimes chaotic life, seen through the eyes of his daughter.
A moving account of a young woman’s experiences of growing up as mixed race in a family of a white mother and a Chinese black Jamaican father. The book imagines the father’s early life in Jamaica, then coming over pre-Windrush to London and his life as a professional gambler with a sometimes chaotic life, seen through the eyes of his daughter.
March 28, 2022
Lovely but sad book reflecting on a loved ones life. The suffering growing up, mistakes made, regrets and to a certain extent reconciliation. A life led humanly and a best as he was able.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews