No Telephone to Heaven
| Author | Michelle Cliff |
|---|---|
| Country | Jamaica |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Dutton Adult |
|
Publication date
|
July, 1987 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 211 pp |
No Telephone to Heaven, the sequel to Abeng, is the second novel published by Jamaican-American author Michelle Cliff. The novel continues the story of Clare Savage, Cliff’s semi-autobiographical character from Abeng, through a set of flashbacks that recount Clare’s adolescence and young adulthood as she moves from Jamaica to the United States, then to England and finally back to Jamaica. First published in 1987, the book has received much attention for its articulation of the paradoxes of history and identity after and counter to colonization.
The novel begins with a small group of guerilla soldiers, a much older Clare Savage among them, traveling through Jamaica’s remote cockpit country. The soldiers have set up on piece of land once owned by Clare’s grandmother Miss Mattie, where they train and grow food as well as ganja.
The second chapter tells the story of Paul H. who is initially at a party with Harry/Harriet—a transgender half-brother/half-sister to one of Paul’s friends. Paul returns home after a late night to find a horrific scene: his family and all of their servants have been murdered with a machete. He stumbles upon Christopher, another servant employed by Paul’s parents, and enlists his help in dealing with the bodies and the burials. But we learn in flashback that Christopher, an orphan whose family including his grandfather has worked for Paul’s parents for a long time, committed the murders when he went to ask a favor from the Paul’s father—to help Christopher find where his grandmother is buried so that he can help her spirit rest—that was denied. In fact, Christopher has been waiting for Paul and kills him before Paul figures out what has happened.
The story then shifts time periods to 1960 when Boy Savage, Clare’s father, is immigrating with his family to the United States. Kitty Savage, Clare’s mother, is not happy about moving away from all she has ever known but she resolves herself to a quiet depression upon departure from Jamaica and arrival in Miami. Boy purchases a used car and the family travels north towards New York City. While traveling through Georgia Boy attempts to get a room in a segregated motel, the innkeeper suspects that he is black but Boy is able to convince the innkeeper that he is white by telling him that his ancestors owned plantations. When the family arrives in New York they go to stay with Winston and Grace, relatives from Kitty’s mother’s side of the family. Boy eventually takes a job driving a laundry truck and Kitty goes to work in the office of his employer. Fed up with the constant racism she encounters, Kitty decides to slip messages into the linens before they are delivered—messages such as “Marcus Garvey was right” and “America is cruel. Consider kindness for a change” aimed at the white customers. Kitty then takes Clare’s younger sister Jennie and returns to Jamaica.
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