Behind the Face of Winter. (Book Reviews).

Confessions: A review of H Nigel Thomas' Behind the Face of Winter (novel), TSAR Publications, 241 pages, 2001 ISBN 0-920661-95-5

H. Nigel Thomas' latest novel, Behind the Face of Winter, is a literary tour de force that chronicles the coming of age of Pedro Moore. The novel depicts Pedro's upbringing in Isabella where his mother, Isis Moore, leaves him behind in the care of his grandmother when she immigrates to Canada to seek a better life. Life in Isabella is stark and bleak. Some villagers hardly have enough money or food to make ends meet. Pedro's grandmother receives food supplies from Sister Shiloh: sugar, flour and rice. She sends this message by Pedro: "Tell Ma Moore I say she don't owe me nothing. We all got to help one another stay above water," (p.6). However, their communal spirit is evident in their acts of sharing food and providing moral support for each other.

These communal attributes and religious faith are observable mainly among the elderly and in particular women and help to buttress them against the socio-economic perils that dog them. This harsh environment forms the backdrop of Pedro's early life. During his pre-teen years he visits his cousins Lucy and Bruisie every summer. He enjoys their company and the sumptuous meals they prepare.

Behind this need for nourishment there is a more insidious question that begs to be answered, the identity of his father. His grandmother seldom responds to his queries and the village elderly refrain from bringing up the subject in his presence. All he learns is that his father is a womanizer "in Trinidad chasing down every frock tail his eyes 'light 'pon"(p. 19). When taking care of Pedro becomes burdensome, Ma Moore ships him off to his mother in Canada.

Thomas delves into the psychology of separation and reunion and exposes the dark underside of maternal and filial relationships at their most vulnerable point. After nine and a half years of disconnection, bonding doesn't come easily for both of them. Pedro finds it difficult to communicate or even associate with his mother, a woman he hardly knows. Her only means of controlling him is by edicts, dire warnings and threats. What is more revealing is that Pedro perception of life in Canada. He lives in a basement apartment that is poorly lit, poorly furnished and lacking in enough space for his mother and him. Food is scarce, and he wears altered second hand clothing from his mother's employers. Pedro's wishes to return to his impoverished but tranquil island home. His anxiety to return is amplified by his resentment of the prevailing conditions at home and in the community.

Isis Moore tries to placate her son's initial rebellion by immersing him in church. She drags him out every Sunday. Instead of palliating his hurt, Pedro uses the occasions to criticise the hypocritical religious views of the worshippers, much to his mother's chagrin. As his mother threatens, intimidates and denies Pedro the right to have friends or to orient himself to living in Montreal, his behaviour becomes more defiant and anti-social.

At school, students make fun of his dress, his speech mannerisms and his urge to excel. There are also hints about his sexuality. As in Isabella, there is a coterie of older men with whom Pedro associates, and these try to help him achieve his goals in life. They try to steer him away from black marginalization in the larger society, bad company, underachievement, and police brutality and imprisonment.

Pedro's survival, however, is dependent upon his tenuous relationships with Hollis, Alfred, Mervyn and other schoolmates, much to Mr. Erskine's frustration and resentment. Eventually, Hollis steals a shirt and places it in Pedro's school bag. He is arrested and taken to the police station where Thomas reveals police brutality and its worst. The interrogating officers make fun of his race and abuse him physically and psychologically. The harrowing experience leaves him retching and with a limp body. His mother wets herself when she sees his condition at the police station. This experiential journey through the 'hell' of police abuse and ignominy, marks the beginning of Pedro's transformation. He finally graduates from high school and his mentor, Mr. Erskine, studying medicine in Washington, sends him a congratulatory telegram. He later completes a DEC. a BA from McGill and an MA degree in Education.

One of the most compelling sections of the novel is his mother's deathbed confession and her asking him for forgiveness. She tells him of her attempts to abort him when she was pregnant. For the first time, he learns what he suspected all along, his father is Patrick Percy and that he is a murderer. She explains that she changed her name and denied his existence to her employers in Laval so that she could keep her job as a live-in maid. He learns too that her going to church was an attempt at expiation and the purging of her soul. The pathos in the telling is overwhelming, and through her dying Pedro is able to finally situate himself within the space and place of Montreal. His final acceptance and appreciation for his mother is in the admiration and respect he now holds for her. The novel shows Thomas' skill as a writer on the level of storytelling, stylistics and social commentator.

In his narrativizing, Thomas deals adroitly with themes such as parent/child relationships, racism, police brutality, in the aftermath of the Anthony Griffin and Marcellus Francois murders, the exploitation of immigrant women, family survival in a hostile environment, and the role of the church in providing hope in a place where harshness only seems to abound. While the novel does not deal explicitly with homosexuality there are oblique references to this theme when Pedro's friends taunt him at school and in the policeman's thrusting of his fingers up his rectum during questioning at the station.

Thomas uses language sparingly but with a cutting edge. Some of the most memorable passages are poetically ornate, echoing George Lamming's sentiments that West Indian novelists are mainly poets. A sample from the prologue demonstrates this: "Outside, the wind hisses--at the buildings, the naked trees, at everything in its path. The usual clamour from squeaking breaks, screeching tires, humming motors on Victoria Avenue--even at this time of morning--or Cote des Neiges, depending on the direction of the wind, is absent; absorbed into the wind and falling snow"(p.1)

The sibilants and alliteration set up wordplay that indicate something sinister is ahead. Proverbs, aspects of the island lilt coonoomoonoo,' 'soucouyan' and 'jakabat,' hymns and religious songs, all provide a rich blend of Caribbean English that permeates the fictional fabric of the novel. This is a more skillfully crafted novel than Thomas' first published novel Spirits in the Dark. Behind the Face of Winter is a must read.

Horace I. Goddard is a Montreal writer. His most recent published work is Paradise Revisited, a novel, published by Winston-Derek Ltd, 1997.