Member Review

Funny Gyal is an unconventional teen story set in a community dominated by the Church in Jamaica’s St Anne’s. Here we are told both Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley were born. The reggae superstar and the visionary social entrepreneur linked by the words “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind”.
As you read Angeline’s story, you will smile and yearn and at times hate the people she loves. At the start, there is bathetic tension between florid literary metaphors in descriptions like Mommy’s voice, “the honey that I’d twirl around on my spoon,” and something raw and honest. However, what early on seemed awkward and mawkish, resonates as the story unravels until, in the traumatized heart of the book, such garrulous words are a means to express the unspeakable, a thing worse than appalling violence, the fear of violence that you already experienced. For Angeline, relative to the brutality of corrective rape, the constant brutality of social opprobrium against homosexuality is a breeze. Although even she almost buckles under the pressure of conversion therapy, “Don’t you want to go to Heaven and be with your parents and sisters after you die?” The recurrent rhythm of poetry “like a warm wind on a still day” bears Angeline beyond the prejudice of her community.
Following this pattern, the narrative of Angeline's ungainly growing up oscillates around her everyday life, the awkwardness and fun of first love, and crisply reported, intensely traumatic situations. There is romance side by side with cruelty, empathy beside prejudice, all leading to resilience and, thankfully, more romance. In Angeline’s world, the church is the enemy’s camp, but still, she draws her strength from her Christian faith. Her ability to forgive allows her to rise above the limitations of her upbringing and become an independent voice. Eventually, she too oscillates between her homeland Jamaica and her freeland, the United States. The book’s totally nasty or just misguided characters jostle, dark and vaguely defined around the edges, while Angeline follows an unwavering path. She always knows what she must do, speak the truth, and speak is clearly, so others hear—the battle for emancipation is never won; she must fight with every breath.