Small Island

By: Andrea Levy

Narrated by: Eddie Nestor, Hugh Bonneville, Sandra Duncan, Sandra James Young

SMALL ISLAND is a delicately wrought and profoundly moving novel of empire, prejudice, war and love.

It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do?

Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door.

Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was...

(P)2015 Headline Digital©2004 Andrea Levy

Abridgment makes the story incomprehensible

I love Andrea Levy as a writer. I also love the performance of most of the narrators in this story, though some accents made it a little hard to make out the words. However after about an hour of listening the story started to make less and less sense.

I opened the Kindle copy of the book and discovered that apparently abridgment means that the narrators read every other line. Characters disappear from a scene without any warning, new chapters start without pause, engagements happen without mention. I got so lost, I stopped listening and kept reading.

It is a beautiful, well-written book, that has been complete mangled in this Audio edition. If you can read, read the book. If you can't, wait for an unabridged version or have a friend read it to you. It is well worth the wait and/or effort. I think Andrea Levy is one of the most talented UK novelists writing right now.