Saturday 15 January 2011

The Duppy by Anthony C. Winkler


My first read for the Caribbean Reads Challenge was The Duppy. This novel set in Jamaica tells the tale of Baps a character who dies in the first line of the novel. This starts off well with a funny episode where he watches his housemaid and gardener stealling his money from his body while he watches (he was a harsh boss and starts getting really miffed when they take Christmas, Easter, New Years etc bonuses, bonuses he would never have paid in his lifetime) then the maid props her sticky feet upon his head while she waits for the doctor to arrive.
After this he travels to a Jamaican heaven, with no fluffy clouds and laziness but plenty of sex, food and gossip. Gradually he becomes friends with God.
This book is meant to be a tongue in cheek look at heaven, Jamaican men and their opinions, and started off well, in fact I enjoyed a good 120 pages of the book. Then, I'd just had enough; the joke had gone on too long and I started feeling that it was just simply silly. I scanned the last 50 pages just to get it finished. Having said that on goodreads this book is rated four stars, where I would only give it one.
For a positive review of this book please see here

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry you didn't like it but this is a very fair/good review! I just put mine up if you want to check it out. :)

katrina said...

Thanks I've had a read. I have a book coming up next for the challenge that I'm looking forward too :)