Product Description

Faith Jackson fixes herself up with a great job in TV and the perfect flatshare. But neither is that perfect - and nor are her relations with her overbearing, though always loving family. Furious and perplexed when her parents announce their intention to retire back home to Jamaica, Faith makes her own journey there, where she is immediately welcomed by her Aunt Coral, keeper of a rich cargo of family history. Through the weave of her aunt's storytelling a cast of characters unfolds stretching back to Cuba and Panama, Harlem and Scotland, a story that passes through London and sweeps through continents.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18235 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Andrea Levy writes with wonderful immediacy and liveliness in this, her third novel about the experience of being black in Britain. It's the late 70's and Faith Jackson's in a hurry - to loosen the hold of her loving but strict parents, to "go her own sweet way". At her new job as a dresser at Television Centre Faith negotiates the trip-wires of being black in often slyly witty, seemingly throwaway asides. But her parents' announcement that they might go home to Jamaica and a vicious racist National Front attack on a local bookshop, propels Faith into crisis.

Urged by her parents--"Child, everyone should know where they come from"--she goes to Kingston to stay with garrulous Auntie Coral. For Faith, it was her aunt's and cousin's rich and lively sequence of conversational storytelling's that 'wrapped me in a family history and swaddled me tight in its stories' - then released her into a new sense of self.

Fruit of the Lemon is an affectionate and absorbing narrative that makes its points about racism's effacements and brutalities with unforced but striking resonance. It offers us a voice of pleasurable yet gritty substance and significance: millennial Britain needs more like this. --Ruth Petrie

Sunday Telegraph
'Always refreshingly undogmatic... [readers] will recognise the truthfulness of the world which Andrea Levy describes'

Review
'Funny and moving... Levy is an ironic comedian whose subtle, intelligent novel steers well clear of whimsy' (Guardian )

'A pleasure to read... Entertaining and revelatory' (TLS )

'Reinforces Levy's reputation as an astute observer of modern British life' (Financial Times )

'Always refreshingly undogmatic... [readers] will recognise the truthfulness of the world which Andrea Levy describes' (Sunday Telegraph )

Customer Reviews

Home and Family Stories
The protagonist in this novel, Faith, is a British girl, born of Caribbean parents who came to England from Jamaica on the Jamaica Producers' banana boat. The emphasis on Faith's life with her friends changes when her parents decide to return to Jamaica to retire. When Faith suffers from a breakdown, it is decided she should stay with her aunt, Coral, in Jamaica for a holiday. The narratives alternate between Faith's life in England and the stories related by her family members, and as the novel progresses, the family tree goes further back as she learns more of her parents' lives and her own history. After feeling out of place at first she learns to adapt saying "they laid a past out in front of me. They wrapped me in a family history and swaddled me tight it its stories". A very enjoyable book, focusing on identity and homeland.

Fruit of the Lemon
Excellent book Andrea Levy has such a good ear for dialogue. She tells such a moving story with wit and makes you care for all the characters. I couldn't put it down.

I was given this book for a birthday present and have now bought it for lots of people; and I'm now reading all her other books.

The characters are so believable and real.

She's Done It Again!
A simply told story that was a joy and a revelation to read. It made me laugh and go quite inside with recognition. These unfolding 'untold' stories of generations of a Jamaican family, and the central characters own search are wonderfully woven together. This was my story...and I wanted to read it out loud to everyone that knows (or thinks they know) me! I always enjoy Andrea Levy - and with this novel she moves on from strength to strength.