Jane Kinsman then states that this guileless, naïve and simple negro (these are her words reader, and not my own) did then reply, 'No, missus, him was born in de wood - where be wedlock?'

Then finally, there's this with the wife of the local baptist minister about the birth of July's own son, Thomas: 'Was your son born in wedlock?' What sort of fool-fool question was this? Tell me, reader, did you ever, up to now, hear of an overseer upon a sugar plantation thinking to marry a slave he has befouled? A senseless liar would July be proved if she answered him, 'Yes.' And a 'No' would surely see this man turn from her. 'Was Tam Dewar married to your mother, Miss July?' July's father was an overseer at the sugarcane plantation. You must not think me a nigger, for me is a mulatto.' July then waited to witness his esteem. This is part of a dialogue between Robert Goodwin and July: It has to do with race, and the vocabulary of race. but I believe my inability to convert this outlandishly funny book into an appropriate paean has something to do with the fine line that plagues any of us who grew up in the Americas fifty years ago. July is the star of The Long Song (and she is a star). thus subject to the advances of white men, including Robert Goodwin, the overseer of the sugar plantation 'Amity.' He woos her, seduces her in the basement of the mansion, gets her with child, then dumps her for the plantation owner, Caroline Mortimer. July is unfortunate in being young and beautiful and a slave.

The Long Song is a rich and funny tale of July growing up in Jamaica during the time of the uprising in the 1830s. The problem I suspect is not the book but me. I wrote a long piece, spent a while cutting it down, and still found it stupid.

I've been trying to review this son-of-a-bitch for three weeks now.

Author of the long song