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- Villa Fair
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- Author: Bernadette Gabay Dyer
- Reviewer: Judith Woolcock Colombo
- Publisher: Beach Holme Publishing, Vancouver
- Format: Fiction, 174 Pages, 2000
- ISBN: 088804104
- Rating: * * * Quills
- www.beachholme.bc.ca/fiction/villa.htm
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- Inspiring and mesmerizing, mysterious and haunting, amusing and surprising, anticlimactic and ordinary are the adjectives that best describe the collection of stories within the pages of Villa Fair.
Jamaican-born Canadian author Bernadette Gabay Dyer draws upon her Caribbean heritage as well as her Canadian experiences to present us with a varied collection of stories that takes the reader on voyages to the past, the present, the Caribbean and the North American and European continents.
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- Leaving Fargo is the tale that transports us back in time to the 1500s to one of the first expulsions of Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain. This is the story of one of the author's paternal ancestors, Jacob Israel Gabay, a 16-year-old artist who finds himself, along with his three brothers and dying mother, in the hold of a Spanish galleon heading away from persecution in Portugal toward the unknown. Jamaica, a new land, promises freedom.
However, all is uncertain to the fatherless brothers who, by the time the new land is sighted, have now also lost their beloved mother. Well-written and beautifully told, this story reminded me of the tales surrounding the journeys to Jamaica made by both my maternal Sephardic Jewish ancestors and my paternal African ones. This story, like the ones I grew up with, spoke of fear, grief and finally hope.
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- Man, Man, also set in the past, is a spellbinding tale of a ten-year-old slave boy who loves to wander the plantation grounds from the sea to the Great House. No one questions the boy's presence as he moves unmolested around the estate. Eventually, the young master brings a new bride home from England. The appearance of this lonely and sorrowful child immediately evokes the sympathy of the young mistress. None of the servants or the slaves she questions about the boy will answer her satisfactorily, so she follows him one night only to find out the haunting truth.
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- Some stories, although not as finely crafted, are delightful or amusing tales. In Ackee Night in Canada, a Jamaican artist serves up a fatally delicious meal to a straying lover. In Peaches and Crème, two young women vie for the attentions of a handsome young man only to have him run off with their middle-aged aunt. In Six Little Sparrows, a Pakistani family brings color to the dull gray days of a librarian who does not really realize their contribution to her days until they return to their homeland.
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- Other stories, although well-written, leave the reader unsatisfied. An African Out In The Cold is such a tale. We are introduced to two young men Jomo and Anjoli, childhood friends from Africa. We learn of their friendship and their importance to each other. We see Jomo arriving in Toronto to visit his friend only to find an empty apartment and no sight of Anjoli. The narrative builds to a climax, except the climax never really happens and the story fizzles out.
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- It is obvious from many of stories in this book that Ms. Dyer is an excellent writer. Therefore, I found Villa Fair the title story to be disappointing. This story is told in the style of eighteenth century romances, such as Jamaica Inn and others in that genre. The young master of the plantation goes to England, meets a beautiful young maiden, marries her and returns home. Time passes, they have an only son who falls in love with a mulatto woman of dubious virtue and has an illegitimate child with her. The story of course ends tragically. However, although both the story and its language is cliché, it could still be an enjoyable read for fans of Victorian romance tales.
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- Although, I found some of the stories weaker than the others, overall , this is a good collection. There is something for every taste. Many will find the stories set in the Caribbean exotic or nostalgic, or the romances their cup of tea. All will enjoy the excellent tales.
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