"Tea By The Sea" by Donna Hemans - Review
I had the opportunity to read “Tea By The Sea” before its official release on June 9th. I have yet to read a Caribbean story with a blossoming mother-daugther relationship… I’ve read great grandmother/granddaugther relationships, yes. Never great mother-daughter relationship. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist (make sure to drop some book recommendations with this theme). However, I do think the approach to the representation of motherhood by showing the absence of connection between a daugther and her mother is specific to Caribbean literature. And what about fathers? Even when they’re not portrayed as womanizers, they’re written as men not involved in parenting their own children… Just in general, the Caribbean fictions I’ve watched or read show Caribbean parenthood from the point of view of the child, even if said child is already an adult. However, I don’t think I’ve read the parenthood theme from the point of view of the parents. Why do parents act the way they do? “Tea By The Sea” follows two Caribbean characters fighting their way into parenthood for different reasons.
The story begins when Lenworth is about to disappear from Plum’s life right after kidnapping their baby nearly right after the baby’s birth. For 17 years, Lenworth hides. For 17 years, Plum looks for him and their daughter. For 17 years, they both explore the twists and turns of Caribbean parenthood between the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21th century.
Lenworth and his experience of fatherhood
When does one become a father? When he finds out about the pregnancy? When the child is born? When he feels that connection through the first smile or the first eye contact? When his heart breaks, unable to appease the crying baby?
Lenworth has to face all these questions, but his answers are nothing but fear and confusion. He fears the way society perceives him, the unknown of being a parent makes him confused. From the outside, he’s the ideal father. But he knows he isn’t. Day after day, he tries to do better but to no avail. The vulnerability he only allows himself to express in his wildest thoughts brings nuances to the reasoning behind his actions. Although he built up this image of respectability, he’s aware of how fragile this illusion is. He’s an ordinary man trying to keep somehow the control of his life because he doesn’t dare to become the man he wants to be. He’s an ordinary man whose cowardice gets proven one bad decision after the other.
Plum and her experience of motherhood
How does one become a mother without raising a child? Although she’s still a teenager, Plum wants to become a mother. Considering how the desire of becoming a mother is usually rejected in Caribbean literature, reading about this desire turning into a purpose of life for such a young female character really moved me. While the mainstream opinion about teen pregnancy tends to silence the voices of these young women about their own bodies, Donna Hemans gives us a perspective of the mixed emotions felt after the loss of the child. Just like Lenworth, Plum only allows herself to be vulnerable in her thoughts but plays the role of the perfect mother to her twins born a few years later after the kidnapping. This traumatic event influences her approach to motherhood. Plums questions herself all the time, lives in fear to find herself in the same situation. So her second try at motherhood never erases her first try she was robbed off. Plum writes her own definition of motherhood with her own pain, in opposition to the motherhood expressed by her own mother and by Lenworth’s mother.
experiences of filiations
The story takes place between Brooklyn in the United States and Anchovy in Jamaica which holds a special place in ther heart of Donna Hemans. Plum and Lenworth are presented through their experience of parenthood but also as products of the history of their parents. We see that they’re both from a background created by the fact they’re Afrocaribbean. The history of our immigrations throughout the past generations are directly linked to the history of slavery in the Caribbean. That’s why I was particularly sensitive to the description of different paths of life that cut off filiations and create new ones. Trying to form a filiation with a geographic area you’re from without necessarily achieving to form a filiation with the geographic area where you live is an issue that many Caribbean societies and their diaspora have to face. Opal, Plum and Lenworth’s daughter, doesn’t know why and how she is where she is. Just like her parents, she only allows herself to expresses vulnerability in her thoughts. Searching for this maternal and paternal connection, she also tries to search where she belongs in her own family and to determine her filiation in her own terms.
Caribbean parents are often portrayed as “the bad guy” without their doubts and fears as parents to be explained… or maybe we don’t read their actions with a perspective nuanced enough to see their doubts and fears. In episode 2 of Karukerament, I talk about the representation of the mother-daughter relationship in Bahamian film “Rain” by Maria Govan. I explain how the daughter Rain and her mother Glory begin to really form a relationship when they stop judging each other for not being the ideal version they dreamt the other to be. I had the same feeling while reading “Tea By The Sea”. The characters conform to an ideal version of themselves built sometimes through volontary choices, sometimes through imposed choices. At the end of the day, this ideal version of themselves is a reflection of their suffering. More than the representation of loss, grief or having agency or not, I closed “Tea By The Sea” thinking that Donna Hemans managed to give back some humanity to Caribbean parenthood.
Make sure to get your copy of “Tea by the Sea” on Red Hen Press, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon. If you want to read more info about the story of Plum, Lenworth and Opal, you can read my Q&A with author Donna Hemans. We talk about her writing process, the importance of representation and agency.