I usually listen to escape. I want to be immersed in made-up worlds full of futuristic tech and unfamiliar social norms and rules, or, at the very least, I’ll take real-life experiences that are vastly different from mine, delivering a voyeuristic thrill. But two years ago, I encountered a story that felt so achingly familiar and evocative of home within the first few minutes that I stopped breathing.
The novel was Golden Child by Claire Adam, a beautifully written and compellingly narrated debut about the gut-wrenching fate of twin brothers and their parents. It’s set on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, which is not only one part of the twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, but is also my homeland. I had left Trinidad with my parents in 1977, at the age of four. Even though I'd been back a few times to while away hot childhood summers, by the time I listened to Golden Child I hadn’t been back since 1993 when I'd taken my then-fiancé down to meet my family. It had been 26 years since I'd set foot on the island of my birth, seen so many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, or felt that warm island breeze caress my skin. Why so long? When I'd had money to go back and visit I didn't have time, and when I'd had time (and small children), I definitely had no money. But Adam’s rich details and language that peppered in the vernacular of my people immediately took me back.
Golden Child opens with a father, a man named Clyde, who comes home, unlatches the gate, gets past his dogs to go to the car port, then heads upstairs to talk with his family only to find out one of his twin boys might be missing. That may seem like a simple enough litany of events, but there was so much to the words and interior thoughts that elicited a sense of homesickness in me.
Golden Child by Claire Adam
Hear a sample from the first chapter
Let’s start with the name "Clyde," which is so deeply common in the British West Indies that I know of at least three in my family alone. Or that the way the word “petrol” (not oil) rolls off of narrator Obi Abili’s tongue sounds as if one of my uncles had just said it. Or that one of the 13-year-old sons changes out of his school clothes and into “short pants”—not shorts. Or that Clyde’s wife Joy has paratha roti and some melongene (not eggplant) and provisions (not root vegetables) waiting for him; I salivated just thinking of this familiar, simple meal. But the most surprisingly emotional moment from that first chapter was the mention of Du Maurier cigarettes, these long slender cigs that come in an elegant red package and that my endearingly curmudgeonly aunt (whom I’ve always deeply loved) smoked constantly.
I devoured Golden Child and loved it, even as the riveting prose followed an unsettling path. I talked about it with everyone I knew. I gifted it to family members. I interviewed the author, also a transplanted Trini, now living in Ireland.
And seven months later, I finally returned to Trinidad and took my then 21-year-old son and 18-year-old daughter for the first time.
When we landed at 5 a.m. it was still dark outside, but the minute we stepped out of the air-conditioned airport my eyes welled up with tears. I cannot explain what it is about the smell of the warm air that hit me so deeply, but I immediately felt I was home, even before I hugged my cousin and my mother who’d come to pick us up. The feeling stayed with me for the ride from the airport to the hotel. The long highway heading into Port of Spain, the capital city where I was born, felt as though I had just been there as it set off little nostalgia explosions in my mind and in my heart. The mountain ranges, luscious and green, loomed off in the distance on the right, and the deep blue Caribbean sea rippled over on my left.
The next week or so would bring family limin' time (hangouts) and adventures (my kids actually got me to go zip-lining!). And every morning, I’d be the first at the hotel pool, sitting and staring out at the water alone, just feeling grateful for the journey that had brought me there.
I’d made it home.
