Jako Books revealed that Dr. Reynolds fourth book, My father is no Longer There, a memoir focusing on the author’s father, sparked by his father’s untimely death, will be published by the middle of 2019. With the publication of the memoir, encouraged by the success of his 2017 tour that followed the publication of The Stall Keeper, the author will embark on an international tour that will take him to Europe, North America, and selected Caricom countries.
Covercopy
On a wet Monday morning, a car runs off the road and kills the author’s father who is on his early morning walk, a short distance from his home. In coming to terms with his father’s senseless and accidental death, the author has written a beautifully crafted, evocative memoir reminiscent of the writings of Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison.
“My Father is no Longer There is nothing less than a meditation on the nature of death, the value of a life, the nature of art and creativity, and what it means to be different, to be an outsider, to live on the fringes of society. It is a manifestation of the author’s quest to get to know his father better than when he was alive.
“It is an exploration of family values, the depths of parental love and sacrifice, and the importance of parent-child bonding. My Father is no Longer There will resonate with all those who have suffered a great loss, be it the death of a loved one, or a parent-child separation.”
Except
On the wet morning of June 6, 2002, a car driven by a twenty-four-year-old motorist spun out of control, ricocheted off another vehicle and plunged into my seventy-eight-year-old dad, who was on his regular morning walk alongside St. Jude’s Highway, on the outskirts Vieux Fort, a town at the southernmost tip of St. Lucia. My dad was only a few hundred yards from his home. He died on the spot. The autopsy revealed a broken neck, a broken spinal cord, and a punctured heart. The autopsy also revealed my dad had no recognizable ills: no cancer, no brain tumor, no hardening of the arteries. So it seems if not for the accident my dad would have enjoyed a good many more years.
Ironically, a few months before the accident my dad had admonished me against jogging alongside the highway. Ironically, my dad who had been a Seventh Day Adventist for more than fifty years was temperate in all things. He didn’t smoke, he didn’t consume alcohol, he exercised regularly, he rested on the seventh day and kept it holy, he went to bed before 9PM and was up by 6AM, and for the previous fifteen, twenty years, ate no meat. Ironically, my dad who had been an active motorist most of his adult life during which he was involved in but one accident, was killed by a motorist in the period of his life when he had long given up driving, when his early morning walk was one of the few times he ventured out of his home. Ironically, my dad who cared so much about life that a cockroach would pass near him and he would make no attempt to squash it, and who when we were children would get angry at us for killing earthworms, butterflies, birds, toads, suffered the most violent of deaths.
How can I explain my father’s death? How can I explain this sorrow, this pain, this emptiness inside me? How can I explain that one morning my father was well and walking, and the next morning no amount of coaxing, no amount of medicine, no amount of obeah, no amount of voodoo could cause him to get up?
Born and raised in Vieux Fort, St. Lucia, Anderson Reynolds holds a Ph.D. in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida. In recent years, 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. An earlier unpublished version of The Stall Keeper won the 2012 National Arts Award for prose. The author’s featured articles in St. Lucian magazines and newspapers won him a 2001 M&C literature award for creative journalism, and similarly a 2006 National Arts Award. The Stall Keeper along with Dr. Reynolds‘ journalistic pieces on Vieux Fort have established him as one of the island’s foremost authority on Vieux Fort ’s socioeconomic history.
Communities and organizations who would like Dr. Reynolds to conduct a book reading and signing in their city as part of the 2019 international book tour, are encouraged to contact the Jako Productions team at: info@jakoproductions.com.