Ladies of the Night in Around the World in 80 Books

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Mar 02, 2022 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: short-stories, setting-caribbean, setting-canada

I was seeking writing from Antigua beyond that of Jamaica Kincaid, and so picked up this collection of eleven short stories, originally published in 1993. As the title implies, the stories feature women's lives and voices. Mother/daughter relationships feature in three of the stories, including the opening title story about a young woman in Antigua who follows her mother into the world's oldest profession, living together and retaining her dignity. This is followed by "Henrietta", which is almos I was seeking writing from Antigua beyond that of Jamaica Kincaid, and so picked up this collection of eleven short stories, originally published in 1993. As the title implies, the stories feature women's lives and voices. Mother/daughter relationships feature in three of the stories, including the opening title story about a young woman in Antigua who follows her mother into the world's oldest profession, living together and retaining her dignity. This is followed by "Henrietta", which is almost the flip side -- it portrays an elderly widowed Antiguan woman whose children have all immigrated to Canada, leaving her to die alone. (Another elderly woman on her own appears in "Mrs. Armoury's Bathwater", and has to rely on a home care nurse and an obeah man.) The final daughter in the collection narrates "On the Gallery,'' describing her mother's infidelity, while her father turns a blind eye.

Infidelity is the dominant theme of the book, and the extent to which it is shown as commonplace was rather surprising to me. In "Croops, Croops, Croops" a woman keeps home and abides her husband's longstanding cheating. A basically similar woman is at the heart of "Bluebeard in a Concrete Jungle', which takes place in Toronto. In that story, a wife and mother encounters a German woman in her building's elevator who turns out to be one of her husband's many mistresses. The meeting convinces her to finally leave him. The final story is "A Hard Choice", with yet another homemaker with a cheating man. In this case, she confronts him, kicks him out, providing the catalyst for him to propose to her. Yet another cheating husband appears in "Sister Friends is Sister Friends", although the true betrayal in that story is between the longtime female friends, as one discovers her closest friend is her husband's mistress.

To be sure, desire without infidelity also appears in two stories -- although they are perhaps the least successful of the lot. In "Butterskin Going to Catch You" a man who is always attracted to women with "butterskin" ends up marrying one from Trinidad. In the overly melodramatic "Body and Soul" single professional woman in Toronto comes to realize that despite her independence and sexual freedom, she has no one close to her and commits suicide. By the end of the book, the reader is left with the sense that Antiguan men are almost universally unfaithful, and that women must either be ever-vigilant, or resigned to this dynamic, but that to be independent is to ultimately be alone, abandoned by your children and shorn of any close relationships. The stories are a grim indictment of gender relations, and hopefully things have advanced a bit in the thirty years since they were first written. ...more

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Jul 04, 2014 Ching-In marked it as to-read

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Around the World in 80 Books