If I Never Went Home

If I Never Went Home Book Review

---

Moving back and forth from the present to the past through flashbacks, this is the powerful story of how these women unearth family secrets that go beyond anything they could have imagined. Then unexpectedly their lives collide, and they are offered the chance to create a home.

See a Problem?

Paperback , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Where the world meets Caribbean Literature

Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Mar 04, Sara Cantoni rated it it was amazing. Un libro intenso, ben scritto e ben gestito nella forma e nella struttura. Interessantissimo sotto il profilo linguistico: Un'intensa storia che parla di dolore, lutto, famiglia, amore e depressione con un finale aperto che non delude il lettore pur lasciandolo con il fiato sospeso!

Dec 23, Mary Maddox rated it it was amazing. The novel's greatest strengths are its intimate and vivid depiction of daily life in Trinidad and its memorable characters. Even the minor characters are complex and surprising. The narrative moves back and forth between Tina and Bea. Tina tells her own story in a first-person colloquial voice while Bea's story comes t Ingrid Persaud's family melodrama If I Never Went Home draws readers into the intersecting worlds of Tina, a young girl living in Trinidad, and Bea, a Trini woman living in Boston. Tina tells her own story in a first-person colloquial voice while Bea's story comes to readers through a more distant third-person narration that occasionally shifts to a secondary character.

Bea is the protagonist, but Tina's voice makes her the more compelling of the two.

The connection between Bea and Tina is murky through most of the novel, but they share one experience: In Bea's case, the alienation begins in childhood when her parents split up. Her father and all his family disown her because she chooses to live with her mother. Over time Bea's relationship with her selfish mother grows strained.

Later, a betrayal leads to a breakdown in communication between them.

Follow the Author

The turmoil in her family takes a toll on Bea. A university professor with colleagues but no close friends, she suffers from intermittent depression, and after a breakup with a boyfriend she attempts suicide and is hospitalized for several weeks. The experience leads her to change careers and become a psychologist. Tina's story begins with her living happily with her mother. One Sunday as they walk home after church, her mother is hit by a van and dies. Nobody knows who Tina's father is, so her maternal grandmother reluctantly takes her in.

From that point on, Tina feels tolerated rather than wanted. Even her cousin becomes standoffish. When she reaches her rebellious teens and disrespects her grandmother, the fireworks begins. While the twists and turns of the plots are interesting, the convoluted narrative structure requires readers to make sudden leaps in time and space.

In one section Bea attends her father's funeral and spots Tina as a small child. In the next, Tina is ten years older. To complicate matters further, Bea's story alternates between her life as a psychologist and her stint as a mental patient. But Persaud manages the shifts competently, and a narrative pattern emerges. The end provides a strong payoff, one that offers emotional satisfaction without falling into sentimentality.

The novel's memorable characters and vivid sense of place make it well worth reading. Mar 07, Jessica Betts rated it really liked it. I read this lovely book for my book group. The narrative and characterisation drew me into the story, alongside the humour, context and well developed theme's. I was particularly drawn to Bea whom i reached out to because of her depressive experiences which were wonderfully explored. I will read again so that I can really take in the characters experiences a little more!

Nov 18, Nerissa Golden rated it really liked it. I found it hard to believe that this was Ingrid Persaud's first published novel, as If I Never Went Home reads like an author very comfortable with expressing her cross-cultural identity to readers. If I Never Went Home features two female protagonists, thirty-something Bea who has moved to Boston from Trinidad and a teenaged Tina still living there. From chapter to chapter, Persaud takes us back and forth between Boston and Trinidad in the past and present.

While this technique was a bit unnervi I found it hard to believe that this was Ingrid Persaud's first published novel, as If I Never Went Home reads like an author very comfortable with expressing her cross-cultural identity to readers. While this technique was a bit unnerving for me, it served to highlight the turmoil both physical and mental that is an underlying theme in the book. The author was courageous enough to deal with the subject of mental health and depression in a compassionate way that highlighted the ever present belief that black people don't attempt suicide, need therapy and certainly don't go into mental hospitals.

She took me inside Bea's head and I felt her struggle and her pain. Bea's work to get help and reclaim her life was a sometimes heart wrenching process to read. Tina is no less troubled with numerous questions about her identity, the need to fit in with her peers, belong to her family and discover the past that keeps growing more distant as she ages.

I was saddened that none of the black male figures in the story were positive figures. All of the men were the catalyst for the pain of the three generations of women in the story. Many of the men died or disappeared without resolution adding to the pain so evident in the women.

It would have been nice to have one of the men who represented a positive image of a black Caribbean man. It also reinforced the notion that Caribbean people don't resolve things we just move away and move on.

Clearly pain does not need a visa and followed Bea to her life in Boston. Going home should be about resolution but its a struggle for Bea to confront her mother who remains painfully angry. Thankfully the book does not end before the Tina and Bea meet and discover they share much more than inner turmoil. Even into the final lines of the book we are discovering new information from their past and you can't help but root for them to have a brighter future as the story closes.

Jan 02, S. Hoyte rated it it was amazing. Bea is a 30ish immigrant from Trinidad living in Boston and Tina, a ten year old girl living in Trinidad. The story follows the lives of each woman over a ten year period until their worlds combine unexpectedly. With all the family skeletons falling out of the closet, Bea and Tina have a unique opportunity to create the family they have each longed for over the years.

Do they have the strength it will take to see their dreams through to the end? Can their new found hope endure one last secret? The story takes us through the life of each woman, going back and forth from Bea to Tina, past to present, dialogue to prose and it works brilliantly. Persaud is a phenomenal story teller, the writing is impeccable, and the characters profound. Have I mentioned that I loved this book? I totally connected with each woman as they struggled to find their place in the world. Bea is an introvert and very much a loner, being the only one in her family to live in the United States.

She quietly bears her mental health issues, reluctant at first to get help, and reluctant to the end to make peace with the past. Tina is a feisty, smart-aleck of a young girl who copes with life and the raw deal that was dealt her in life with sarcastic wit and cynical resignation. I was transported to Trinidad, reading with pure enjoyment as the characters spoke in their natural tongue, and marveling at the way the customs and traditions of the island are depicted.

IF I NEVER WENT HOME by Ingrid Persaud | Kirkus Reviews

The ending was a complete surprise — the author leads you down one path and then throws in something totally incomprehensible right at the very end. Persaud has plans for a sequel! Nov 20, Zichao Deng rated it it was amazing. Especially, the sections written in the voice of Tina: Usually I am the only person under a hundred. Is always a set of half dead church elders. Actually that is not completely true. We also get invited to every single wedding, christening and funeral happening in St. In fact, in our family you can't pick your nose without first notifying St.

A little later, when stopping by a well-attended wake, she remarks on how she "got to sample the buzz first hand" - isn't that amazing? I'll admit that I had more mixed feelings about Bea, the elder of the two main characters. When we first meet her, in hospital being treated for depression, she is bleakly witty, clever and original.

After a while, however, the endless misery and neuroticism begins to pall - at one point two separate characters tell her to snap out of it and get a grip, and instead of thinking "how heartless", I thoroughly agreed with them. Now I've reached the end, I see why things had to go that way, but I'd still have prefered more from badass Tina. The scope of the book covers several generations of marriage, infidelity and childbirth not necessarily in that order within several Trinidadian families, all linked by the extramural activities of Alan Clark, Bea's father and local good time guy.

The relationships weave in and out of each other, fading out or reappearing over the years. At several points I found myself wishing that there was a family tree provided at the start of the book, so that I could check back, but then realised that without giving too much away this would either be incorrect or the biggest spoiler ever, so probably impossible to do Anyhow, I'll definitely be reading this book again.

Nov 03, Marsha Gomes-Mckie rated it really liked it. I appreciated the realness of the story as it looked at growing up in the Caribbean in a small village and the effects that it had on both of the main characters in Trinidad and even after migrating to Boston. I have to admit that I took a while to get accustomed to the fact that the story had two main voices because Bea had frequent flashbacks to her I appreciated the realness of the story as it looked at growing up in the Caribbean in a small village and the effects that it had on both of the main characters in Trinidad and even after migrating to Boston.

I have to admit that I took a while to get accustomed to the fact that the story had two main voices because Bea had frequent flashbacks to her childhood when the second character, Tina was also a child. I did a bit of re-reading before I could find my bearings. Nevertheless once found, I read it with ease and comfort.

I would have liked to find out more about how Bea made the transition from patient to doctor after that final blow with her mother. Her character matured somewhere in the book to take that leap of faith in the end and I was waiting for the flashback to go through it with her.

Tina, unlike Bea, is determined not to let the demands, dysfunction or tragedies of her family control her life. She will be stronger than everyone gives her credit for and learn to do everything on her own. If I Never Went Home by Ingrid Persaud, covers the span of ten years in the lives of Bea and Tina as they both struggle through heartaches and hardships. Their paths will cross, but it is only when the two stand face to face that they realize the help each of them need, might be found in each other.

The story is told in a series of flashbacks for both characters, which may be a little confusing until the reader understands the timeline for each of them. If I Never Went Home is also a good book club pick as there are so many topics to discuss in this complex story full of flawed characters.

Janine Harris never really thought about homeless people. She barely even notices them as she passes them by on her way to work in downtown Washington D.

All Janine can focus on is the shambles of her own young life, afraid that she will never be able to get past the painful mistakes she has made. However, all of that changes on a snowy evening in December when Janine unexpectedly finds herself alone with Vera, an old, homeless woman who seems to need her help. Now Janie wants to know what could have possibly happened to Vera to leave her so broken and alone. As Vera shares her life story with Janine, the two women form an unusual bond and begin a journey that changes both of their lives forever.

• The Savernake Big Belly Oak
• Strategic Marketing Planning for the Small to Medium-Sized Business: Writing a Marketing Plan
• A Palace Full of Princesses (Early Reader)
• Fort Fisher to Elmira: The Fatal Journey of 518 Confederate Prisoners
• The Carpenters Daughter
• African-American Political Leaders (A to Z of African Americans)