{"id":4251,"date":"2013-06-10T11:13:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-10T11:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2013-06-12T11:21:06","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T11:21:06","slug":"sketcher-by-roland-watson-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=4251","title":{"rendered":"Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Alma Books 23 May 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

300pp, paperback, \u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Paul Sidey<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the author, this first novel started life as a short story. \u2018I re-read some ten-year-old atmospheric notes about a swamp I grew up in and thought I would give magical realism a try\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Watson-Grant works in advertising in Jamaica, but has family in Louisiana and the southern USA, so he is familiar with the territory he is writing about, although he sets the book back in the 80s when his young hero and narrator \u2018Skid\u2019 Beaumont is nine years old.<\/p>\n

After a night on the booze, Skid\u2019s white father decided to relocate the family in a \u2018little piece of purgatory\u2019, in the na\u00efve belief that a 70s oil boom would encourage expansion and development out of New Orleans. But the dream fizzles out. Pops\u2019 repair business falls into disrepair, and the marriage disintegrates.<\/p>\n

It is hard not to compare this novel with Benh Zeitlin\u2019s recent debut feature film Beasts of the Southern Wild<\/em>, where a little black girl called Hushpuppy is marooned with her sick and alcoholic father in the desperately poor bayous of Louisiana at the time of the havoc caused by Hurricane Katrina. The movie has a free-wheeling emotional intensity which manages to absorb the surreal into the basic narrative. Fantastic, imaginary, prehistoric creatures called Aurochs are freed from the icecaps, and, perhaps rather sentimentally, arrive in post- apocalyptic Louisiana to kneel before the orphaned Hushpuppy\u2026<\/p>\n

In Watson-Grant\u2019s vivaciously written novel, Skid\u2019s mother has magic powers, and his older brother Frico possibly has the gift of being able to draw what he wants into being. But nothing can really change bad luck. However, the book exudes optimism and good faith, for all the betrayals and disasters that befall the family.<\/p>\n

It is all about the narrator\u2019s voice, as with Zeitlin\u2019s film. Both plots are fairly leaky. But energy, atmosphere, idiosyncratic characters, and richly-charged language combine to show us that Roland Watson-Grant is a writer to watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Paul Sidey<\/p>\n

In Watson-Grant\u2019s vivaciously written novel, Skid\u2019s mother has magic powers, and his older brother Frico possibly has the gift of being able to draw what he wants into being. But nothing can really change bad luck. However, the book exudes optimism and good faith, for all the betrayals and disasters that befall the family […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4259,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}