Brown Girl in the Ring

Overview

The award-winning first novel by the author of Midnight Robber and Under Glass, which are also available as eBooks.

Editorial Reviews

The musical rhythms of Caribbean voices and the earthy spirit-magic of obeah knit together this unusual fantasy, the first winner of Warner Aspect's First Novel Contest. Toronto in the next century is a "doughnut hole city," its core collapsed into ruinous slums after much of the population left to escape rising urban crime and violence. Those who remain in the Burn are survivors like Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother Mami, who trade herbal cures and spells for necessities, or predators like drug-lord Rudy and the "posse" of men, including Ti-Jeanne's ex-lover Tony, who sell "buff" for him. Outside the Burn, Catherine Uttley, the premier of Ontario, needs a heart transplant and a boost in her approval ratings. To accomplish both, she announces support for a return to voluntary human organ donation, allegedly to prevent the spread of Virus Epsilon, sometimes found in the porcine organs grown for transplant. The heart she needs will have to come from someone in the Burn, and Rudy saddles Tony with the job of finding a donor. Tony has no stomach for the job, however, and goes to Ti-Jeanne and Mami for help, bringing the unpredictable and powerful spirits of Caribbean obeah into play. Though the story sometimes turns too easily on coincidence, Hopkinson's writing is smooth and assured, and her characters lively and believable. She has created a vivid world of urban decay and startling, dangerous magic, where the human heart is both a physical and metaphorical key.

Author Information

Bio of Nalo Hopkinson

My late father was a Guyanese poet, playwright, actor. He acted in Derek Walcott's Trinidad Theatre Workshop, whose play "Ti-Jean and His Brothers" I reference throughout Brown Girl in the Ring. I recently discovered that in 1969, Daddy performed "Ti-Jean and His Brothers" on CBC Radio, playing all the parts. I'm now trying to find a recording of that performance. It would be nice to have a copy of it. One of Daddy's best-known poems in the Caribbean was "Madwoman of Papine." It's a solemn, classically-structured piece about a bag lady who used to live in Kingston, Jamaica. She wore the same dress year in, year out, and would have screaming fights with the air. In the poem, Daddy describes her, then talks ironically about how an old, mad homeless woman will not be considered appropriate subject matter for the lofty art of poetry: Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be, Advised that if I valued poetry,I should eschew all sociology. It tickles me then that Slade Hopkinson's daughter has become a writer of science fiction, a literature known for its critiques of social systems. I quoted from "Madwoman of Papine" in Brown Girl in the Ring. The character of Crazy Betty reminded me of Daddy's poem. It's a thrill to be able to see his writing in print next to mine. I started writing fiction in 1993, the same year that Daddy died. Science fiction writer Judy Merril was going to teach a course in writing at Ryerson University in Toronto, where I live. In order to be placed in the class, you had to submit samples of your writing so that Judy could assemble a group of people who were all writing at more or less the same level of skill. I had not written any fiction at that point, but I admired Judy and wanted the chance to be taught by her. I cobbled together an unfinished six pages of something about a shy young woman who has visions and is trying to hide that fact from the people around her. I had no idea what I was writing or how to shape it. Other people handed in complete short stories.I worked the piece I had submitted to Judy up to about ten thousand words, realized it was a novel, and panicked. I knew that I didn't yet have the skills to handle something in such a long form. In 1995, I attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at Michigan State University, where I concentrated on learning how to write short fiction. When I returned from Clarion, I heard about the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. I submitted my incomplete ten thousand word manuscript to Warner, figuring it would get turned down. Two weeks later I got a letter back from Warner: "Send us the whole novel to be forwarded to the second round of the competition--no drafts, please." !!!!!! I wrote for two months solid, workshopping the manuscript every two weeks with my writing group. I discarded whole story lines when they became too complicated to pursue in the short time I had. I finished the manuscript the day before the January 31 deadline for submissions to the contest. I had no time to workshop the last bit with my group, I just printed it up, sent it off, and went to bed. Six months later, Betsy Mitchell from Warner Aspect phoned me to tell me that I had won. Writing a novel feels like wrestling a mattress, but it's been a fun, exhilarating process.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Grand Central Publishing

Filesize

635.46 KB

Number of Pages

256

eBook ISBN

9780759520448

Awards

• Canada Reads
• James Tiptree Jr. Award
• Locus Awards
• Philip K. Dick Award
• Prix Aurora Awards