Jako Books, a division of Jako Productions, has announced the publication of The Stall Keeper, Dr. Anderson Reynolds’ long awaited and much anticipated third book, and second novel. Unlike Dr. Reynolds’ first novel which was set largely in Castries, the northern city and capital of St. Lucia, The Stall Keeper is set in the author’s hometown of Vieux Fort, the southernmost part of the island, and employs the American World War II occupation of the town as backdrop.
According to the book’s cover copy, the inhabitants of Vieux Fort, a Caribbean town occupied by the Americans during World War II, were said to be waiting for the Americans’ return to bring back the good times. Five-year-old Henry whose father died when he was eighteen months old was still walking up to men asking, “Mister, are you my father?” His mother, Eunice, a strict Seventh Day Adventist with the gift of foretelling the future, would not be unequally yoked. Eugene, a stall keeper and the town’s most colourful and free-spirited character, was a woman living in a man’s body, and a man living in a woman’s world. Ruben, a favourite son, an intellectual, a famous cricketer and a staunch Roman Catholic, falls madly in love with Eunice. What happens in Vieux Fort when Henry teams up with Eugene and Ruben warms his way into the heart of Eunice is a tale of magic and tragedy.”
The writings of Dr. Reynolds, be it fiction or nonfiction, has been described as a world in which a great drama unfolds where history, geography, nature, culture, the supernatural, and socioeconomic and political factors all combine to seal the fate of its characters. In this crucible of a world, readers are provided with deep insights into where St. Lucians come from, who they are as a people, and how they became who they are. If so, then readers are in for a treat, because The Stall Keeper provides deep insights into the forces that have shaped Vieux Fort; it speaks to the very character of the town, and throws light on long unanswered questions about why Vieux Fort is the way it is.
Moreover, with its contemplation on Vieux Fort, the timing of The Stall Keeper couldn’t have been more auspicious, considering that the St. Lucia Citizen by Investment Program (CIP), and the Desert Star Holdings (DSH) proposed Vieux Fort Development have thrown into sharp relief such issues as the historical exploitation of Vieux Fort, who runs Vieux Fort, the landlessness of Vieux Fortians, local government reform, and the loss of St. Lucian sovereignty and patrimony. As such readers will gain a deeper understanding of these issues and thus be better able to place DSH and other development proposals for Vieux Fort into geographical, historical, and socioeconomic perspective.
Born and raised in Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, Anderson Reynolds graduated in August 1989 with a PhD in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida. In 2001 he established Jako Productions, a cultural and entertainment enterprise that seeks to encourage the artistic expression of St. Lucian culture and to promote that culture worldwide through its website, social media, the publication of books and magazines, the production of music and film, the management of artists, and the staging of musical, literary and other cultural events.
Besides his cultural and social activism and his professional life as an economist, Dr. Reynolds has emerged as one of St. Lucia’s most prominent and prolific writers. His first book, the novel, Death by Fire, won the 2001 M&C main award for literature.
His second, The Struggle for Survival: an historical, political and socioeconomic perspective of St. Lucia, won a 2003 M&C prize for prose. And an earlier version of The Stall Keeper won the 2012 National Arts Award.
Besides writing books, Dr. Reynolds is a regular contributor of feature articles to the nation’s major newspapers and he served as the chief editor and a principal writer for The Jako magazine. His newspaper articles won him a 2001 M&C literature award for creative journalism, and his writings for The Jako won the 2006 National Arts Award for creative journalism. Along with his books, Dr. Reynolds’ journalistic pieces on Vieux Fort, including The Making of Shantytown, A School Waiting to be Rescued, and more recently, Who Runs Vieux Fort, and The Pearl of the Caribbean, have established him as one of the island’s foremost authority on Vieux Fort’s socioeconomic history.
The Stall Keeper has garnered much praise. Allan Weekes, author of Talk of the Devil, said: “The Stall Keeper is a compelling story of provincial bigotry, coming of age, religious experience and rivalry, faith, fanaticism, the supernatural, frustrated love, and the repression of intelligence and ambition, played against the beautiful wide open spaces and relics of post American World War II occupied Vieux Fort.
Modeste Downes, author of Phases and Theatre of the Mind, said: “Here is a writer who is fast developing a reputation for being St. Lucia’s most important storyteller… The Stall Keeper is told with deserving punctuations of pathos, drama, suspense, excitement and rare hilarity. It recalls with great vividness the social and cultural norms and mores of the time. It is an engaging narrative that readers of all ages will find both informative and climactic. A reassuring statement on the emerging class of St. Lucian novelists. An excellent aid to our understanding of our past.”
Dr. Jolien Harmsen, author of Rum Justice, A History of St. Lucia, and Sugar, Slavery and Settlement: a social history of Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, from the Amerindians to the present, said: “The Stall keeper is a wonderful journey down memory lane for anyone who has breathed the salty sea breeze of Vieux Fort in the middle and late 20th century… It’s a wry book; a story that sticks in the mind.”
And Jacques Compton, author of a troubled dream, An Introduction To Theatre Arts, and The West Indians—Portrait of a People, said: “This is a complex and ambitious novel … (that) deals with history, poverty, politics, sports, education, jealousy, religion, superstition, and the effect these have on individual lives, in certain cases with tragic results… The author invites us to take a hard, serious and critical look at a society wracked by illiteracy, ignorance and superstition, in which drunkards, beggars, prostitutes abound. The very nature of the society, the author seems to suggest, does not allow for any escape, for the few who tried are destroyed by jealousy and the workings of obeah.”
Published by Jako Books, The Stall Keeper is all of 280 pages and has a list price of US$24.95, but is being sold in St. Lucia at EC$60.00.
With the publication of The Stall Keeper, Dr. Reynolds will embark on a national and international book tour that will include book readings in Vieux Fort, Soufriere, and Castries; readings at most of the island’s secondary schools; readings at primary schools in the south of the island; and readings in Barbados, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and London.
For more information on the Stall Keeper, Jako Productions and Anderson Reynolds, readers are encouraged to visit: www.jakoproductions.com | www.facebook.com/jakoproductions | www.facebook.com/LucianCulture/
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