Description
This complex memoir tells the story of two simultaneous journeys: Diana Lewes’s 1889 shuttle from England to consult with her circle of relatives’s sugar plantations within the Caribbean, and the internal rite of passage of a Victorian girl on her journey to adulthood. For it’s in Jamaica that Miss Lewes tries to find a place for herself within the mysterious adult world, to bear in mind its coded rules and hidden passions. Set primarily on a plantation known as Arcadia, overlooking the sea and Cuba from on high, Miss Lewes alternates between the acceptable pursuits of a Victorian gentlewoman, and looking for a more meaningful role for herself on this man’s world. With black and white plates.