Our Lady of Demerara

Set in the British town of Coventry in the early 1990s, this novel centers on Lance Yardley, a drama critic for a local newspaper. Only 30-years-old, he is already a seedy wreck of a man, spending his nights drifting through the back streets and derelict areas of the city looking for prostitutes. A working-class boy raised in a broken home, he has sought escape through his marriage to an actress, the great-granddaughter of a 19th-century Englishman who made his fortune from the sugar plantations in Guyana. He soon finds himself drawn to a mysterious Indian girl called Rohini who works in the antiques store of an elderly friend. When Rohini dies suddenlythe victim of a strange assassinYardley decides to decamp abroad for a while. He travels to Guyana, seeking an Irish priest who was a former missionary there. The priest's fragmented journals promise some possible resolution for Yardley, but the Guyana he ends up discovering provokes more questions than answers. From degradation and redemption to cross-cultural relationships and sexuality, this novel follows the personal journeys of a troubled man.

David Dabydeen is a professor at the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Disappearance, The Intended, and Slave Song.