Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML:�??In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once. All of them convince and sing. All of them shine.�?��??Zadie Smith
An O: The Oprah Magazine �??Top 15 Best of the Year�?� �?� A Well-Read Black Girl Pick

Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret�??Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these eleven stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.
In �??Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands,�?� an NYU student befriends a fellow Jamaican whose privileged West Coast upbringing has blinded her to the hard realities of race. In �??Mash Up Love,�?� a twin�??s chance sighting of his estranged brother�??the prodigal son of the family�??stirs up unresolved feelings of resentment. In �??Bad Behavior,�?� a couple leave their wild teenage daughter with her grandmother in Jamaica, hoping the old ways will straighten her out. In �??Mermaid River,�?� a Jamaican teenage boy is reunited with his mother in New York after eight years apart. In �??The Ghost of Jia Yi,�?� a recently murdered student haunts a despairing Jamaican athlete recruited to an Iowa college. And in �??Shirley from a Small Place,�?� a world-famous pop star retreats to her mother�??s big new house in Jamaica, which still holds the power to restore something vital.
Alexia Arthurs emerges in this vibrant, lyrical, intimate collection as one of fiction�??s most dynamic and essential authors.
Praise for How to Love a Jamaican
�??A sublime short-story collection from newcomer Alexia Arthurs that explores, through various characters, a specific strand of the immigrant experience.�?��??Entertainment Weekly
�??With its singular mix of psychological precision and sun-kissed lyricism, this dazzling debut marks the emergence of a knockout new voice.�?��??O: The Oprah Magazine
�??Gorgeous, tender, heartbreaking stories . . . Arthurs is a witty, perceptive, and generous writer, and this is a book that will last.�?��??Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties