KINGSTON, Jamaica —–
A Way To Escape, Jamaican Michelle Thompson’s book based on her childhood in East Kingston, will have its local launch on December 15.
The book, Thompson’s first, chronicles the life of a working-class family in post-Independence Jamaica. Their stable home is disrupted by an alcoholic father’s abuse of his wife.
The matriarch, Rose Tomlinson, leaves her husband with their children and eventually migrates to Toronto, Canada. By the mid-1970’s, they join her there.
“Growing up in East Kingston gave me a sense of community, where we looked out for each other, and loyalty still means a lot to me. Today, if anyone, especially from my Jamaican or Black community needs my help, I make the time,” Thompson told the OBSERVER ONLINE.
A Way To Escape was released by LMH Publishing in September in Toronto where Thompson has lived for 40 years, and New York.
Thompson, a social worker, said the book is a tribute to her mother Joyce Thompson.
“My mother was my hero. To have gone through what she did, raising four children in a new country all by herself and to have us all turn out well is a blessing.”
By Howard Campbell
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