I think the best way to describe How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is with words like unflinching, gritty and relentless. With subject matter that includes generational trauma, domestic abuse, murder and rape that’s hardly surprising.
But it’s also a book that compels you to keep reading and maybe you shouldn’t look away from the hard stuff that is described by the author Cherie Jones. Set in 1980s Barbados, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House highlights that what appears to tourists to be a paradise island is a very different place for the people who live there.
Lala is the novel’s main protagonist and is married to an attractive but abusive man. Her mother suffered the same fate. And her grandmother is still married to a man who is a sexual predator. The only way to keep her daughter safe was to lock her in the outhouse at night.
It’s her grandmother, Wilma, who tells Lala the cautionary tale of the one-armed sister. The moral of the story is to avoid the temptation of darkness (in the local tunnels), or you could be hurt by the monster that lives there. It was meant to persuade Lala not to disobey her, but instead, she chose the darkness in the form of her petty criminal husband, Adan.
She tries hard to please Adan, but things just go from bad to worse for Lala in their small house on Baxter’s Beach. Further along the beach in one of the fancy holiday homes is the novel’s other key player, Mira Whalen. The novel opens with the murder of Mira’s husband Peter, and their relationship issues and her response to his death are also laid bare for the reader to absorb.
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House isn’t an easy read, but it’s also hard to put down. Somehow, you get drawn into the pitiful lives of the characters and want to know what lies ahead for them. Hoping desperately that, eventually, something good will happen.
I bought How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House from the Oxfam shop where I’m a book volunteer – and I donated it back after I read it! You might also find it in your local library or the Oxfam online bookshop.
For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog.