The Drowned Forest
In this novel, told in the voices of the five main characters, Angela Barry brings to vivid life the conflicts and possibilities of change in Bermuda as it emerges from the old colonial order of white privilege.
Price
£9.99
Author(s)
Angela Barry
ISBN number
9781845235376
Pages
272
Price
£9.99
Classification
Fiction, Novel
Ebook
Country setting
Bermuda
Publication date
23 Jun 2022

In the discovery of a fossilized tree stump deep off the coast of Bermuda, Angela Barry finds a potent metaphor of long-term climate change against which to measure the alarms, resentments and hopes of future possibilities expressed by her characters as they respond to Bermuda’s emergence from colonial status. Modernity brings challenges to the old racial, cultural and religious hierarchies that have dominated the island. 
Told through a group of characters brought together in shared responsibility for Genesis, a young Black adolescent girl on the verge of incarceration as a juvenile offender, and by Genesis herself, Barry explores a clashing of subcultures, each with the sense that their Bermuda is the one that possesses the island’s virtues. There is Nina, from the respectable Black middle-class, with her own prickly uncertainties and moral hang-ups; Lizzie, fighting for her own space in a Portuguese family railing against changing times; Tess, battling with guilt over her white privilege and her reluctance to lose its benefits; and Hugh, a young Welshman who has come to the island to find himself. Angela Barry weaves a rich and absorbing narrative in which these different perspectives – insider / outsider, youth / age, Black / white – are each given sympathetic space and a convincing sense of growth through the span of the novel. Above all, in the character of Genesis, Barry creates a dynamic and winning portrayal of the energies, hopes, conscience and vulnerabilities of youth. Beyond the human world with all its divisions, there are the little-known islands of  Bermuda, for whose stunning beauties and sometimes urban ugliness Barry has a vividly descriptive eye. 

Listen to Angela Barry talking about Bermuda and her new novel on the Love the Words podcast online here and on Apple Podcasts.

Variations
Angel Barry smiling

Angela Barry

Bermudian by birth, Angela Barry lived abroad for more than 20 years – in England, France, The Gambia, Senegal and the Seychelles – before returning to Bermuda, where she worked as a lecturer until retiring in 2016.
View full profile