In a poor Jamaican community, Delores peddles souvenirs to tourists at the market while her eldest daughter, Margot, works at the nearby resort, peddling paradise to men with money and burying her own desires. Margot’s younger sister, Thandi, carries the weight of the family’s hopes for a brighter future, yet she sees salvation not in the elite school her family can barely afford, but in the skin-whitening remedies that promise a new life. Dennis-Benn’s brilliant debut novel illuminates the sexism, racism, and classism of the region while blazing with lyrical and narrative profundity.
