From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her Island

'Throughout her life my mother lived in two places at once: Kingston, Jamaica, where she raised a family of nine children, and Harvey River, in the parish of Hanover, where she was born and grew up.'

When Lorna's great-grandfather, William Harvey, first discovered a clearing at the end of a path trodden by the feet of escaping slaves, he gave his name to what was to become his family's home for generations. For Lorna's mother Doris, Jamaica's Harvey River was the place she always called home, where she was one of the 'fabulous Harvey girls', and the rich local bounty of yarns, pimentos and mangoes went hand in hand with the Victorian niceties and comforts of her parents' house. Years later, when her fortunes changed, it was a place she returned to in her dreams . . .

Peopled with a cast of wonderfully drawn characters, and written in a lush, vivid prose textured with the cadences of Creole, Lorna Goodison's memoir weaves together memory and island lore to create a vivid and irresistible tapestry.

From Harvey River tells a universal story of mothers and daughters, of family and the ties that bind us to the place we call home.