Jamaica Girl

Book excerpt: Rosalind Juliet Mitchell could become one of the great heroines of modern fiction. She is a Jamaican Lolita and a Caribbean cross between Huck Finn and Liza Doolittle. Dirt poor, hungry, bright-eyed and determined, she clings to her one distant hope a Glenn Webber, an aging, uncertain American tourist. He is Humbert with a conscience, forced comically to confront one moral dilemma after another in an effort to comprehend a culture very different from his own. In this hilarious, erotic, heart-rending romp, we move from a bloody jungle killing to a Kingston beauty pageant, meeting on the way a supporting cast that includes a voodoo witch, a hip-hop dancer, an ebullient taxi driver, a sly Rasta-man, a ruthless voyeur, a stoned plant lady, a corrupt detective, a quirky pageant coach, some wild Jamaican strippers and an assortment of mountain peasants. Have you been to Jamaica, mon? Climbed the falls? Now immerse yourself in this tropical odyssey of struggle and triumph, and meet one of the most memorable heroines in modern imaginative literature.