The Pirate's Daughter

by Margaret Cezair-Thompson and Margaret Sezar Tompson

Book Overview

WINNER OF THE ESSENCE LITERARY AWARD IN FICTION In 1946, Hollywood's most famous swashbuckler, Errol Flynn, arrived in Jamaica in a storm-ravaged boat. After a long and celebrated career on the silver... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812979427
• ISBN13: 9780812979428
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A memorable tale of love, strength and Jamaica

By Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God The Pirate's Daughter is not the sort of book I usually pick up. At first glance it has the look of a romance novel, a genre I don't condemn but one that I feel too pressed for time to invest in. In my mind there are just too many non-fiction books out there, waiting to enlighten me about one thing or another. Fortunately, a friend urged me to give this book a chance and I'm glad I did. The Pirate's Daughter is a wonderful novel with memorable characters. Most impressive, it manages to feel like a true story throughout. I often forgot that I was reading a work of fiction. It all felt so very real. Ida and May, the central characters seem more real in my head than half of the actual living people I know. Jamaican-born Margaret Cezair-Thompson teaches literature and creative writing at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After reading The Pirate's Daughter I'm ready to sign up for her class. Her ability to tell an interesting story with great characters while gently nurturing a sense of concern and empathy into readers' minds seems effortless. Beyond the people, Cezair-Thompson leads readers on a memorable tour of Jamaican culture and history without ever once sounding like some shallow tour guide throwing disconnected facts at you. The novel centers around Ida, a young Jamaican girl who has a love affair with 1950s Hollywood superstar Errol Flynn. The swashbuckling matinee idol lives on Navy Island off the coast of Jamaica and has a working relationship/friendship with Ida's father. What began so simply, however, quickly becomes complex when Ida becomes pregnant. When the baby, May, is born the novel becomes her story too. Spanning decades, The Pirate's Daughter brilliantly mingles the stories of Flynn, Ida, May and Jamaica. Ida and May see their country become independent in 1962 and experience the downward spiral into violence and chaos. But Jamaica's political and social problems in the 1960s and 1970s are not thrown up as a mere backdrop to add fire to the book. Much more is present, including the many positive and unique aspects of Jamaican culture. Caribbean readers will appreciate that The Pirate's Daughter has a legitimate Jamaican feel to it. Anyone who has lived in Jamaica or spent time there will recognize the authenticity behind Cezair-Thompson's work. This is not a story that is "set in Jamaica". This is a story that is genuinely Jamaican. One of my favorite lines in the book comes in a letter from young May who describes her love for Jamaica. "Here is a secret about me: I feel strange saying it but I've always been madly in love with the land of my birth--the land, not the nation or state--it's not patriotism; it's landscapism, which is both a passion for the land and a kind of escape. I used to wake up earlier than everyone else when I was a little girl just so I could be alone with the view and have no one intruding between me and the morning air.

A memorable tale of love, strength and Jamaica

The Pirate's Daughter is not the sort of book I usually pick up. At first glance it has the look of a romance novel, a genre I don't condemn but one that I feel too pressed for time to invest in. In my mind there are just too many non-fiction books out there, waiting to enlighten me about one thing or another. Fortunately, a friend urged me to give this book a chance and I'm glad I did. The Pirate's Daughter is a wonderful novel with memorable characters. Most impressive, it manages to feel like a true story throughout. I often forgot that I was reading a work of fiction. It all felt so very real. Ida and May, the central characters seem more real in my head than half of the actual living people I know. Jamaican-born Margaret Cezair-Thompson teaches literature and creative writing at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After reading The Pirate's Daughter I'm ready to sign up for her class. Her ability to tell an interesting story with great characters while gently nurturing a sense of concern and empathy into readers' minds seems effortless. Beyond the people, Cezair-Thompson leads readers on a memorable tour of Jamaican culture and history without ever once sounding like some shallow tour guide throwing disconnected facts at you. The novel centers around Ida, a young Jamaican girl who has a love affair with 1950s Hollywood superstar Errol Flynn. The swashbuckling matinee idol lives on Navy Island off the coast of Jamaica and has a working relationship/friendship with Ida's father. What began so simply, however, quickly becomes complex when Ida becomes pregnant. When the baby, May, is born the novel becomes her story too. Spanning decades, The Pirate's Daughter brilliantly mingles the stories of Flynn, Ida, May and Jamaica. Ida and May see their country become independent in 1962 and experience the downward spiral into violence and chaos. But Jamaica's political and social problems in the 1960s and 1970s are not thrown up as a mere backdrop to add fire to the book. Much more is present, including the many positive and unique aspects of Jamaican culture. Caribbean readers will appreciate that The Pirate's Daughter has a legitimate Jamaican feel to it. Anyone who has lived in Jamaica or spent time there will recognize the authenticity behind Cezair-Thompson's work. This is not a story that is "set in Jamaica". This is a story that is genuinely Jamaican. One of my favorite lines in the book comes in a letter from young May who describes her love for Jamaica. "Here is a secret about me: I feel strange saying it but I've always been madly in love with the land of my birth--the land, not the nation or state--it's not patriotism; it's landscapism, which is both a passion for the land and a kind of escape. I used to wake up earlier than everyone else when I was a little girl just so I could be alone with the view and have no one intruding between me and the morning air." Reading The Pirate's Daughter is a sensitive and memorable journey through

Sensual descriptions, engaging dialect and captivating characters

While THE PIRATE'S DAUGHTER is a work of fiction, Errol Flynn, the central character around which the story is built, was real. In 1946, while sailing the Caribbean aboard his yacht Zaca, a hurricane forces Flynn to dock in Jamaica. The movie star, who is originally from the island of Tasmania, immediately feels at home. He is captivated by Jamaica's natural beauty and its multi-cultured and multi-colored residents. Known worldwide for his handsome "swashbuckling hero" portrayal in movies like Captain Blood, Flynn is becoming even more notorious for his hard drinking and womanizing. His adulterous affairs and dalliances with increasingly younger women --- some of them barely out of their early teens --- garner Flynn legal troubles, including statutory rape charges, public outcry and notoriety in the press. With his private life and media image crashing around him, Flynn seizes the opportunity to find a safe haven in Jamaica, where he hopes to restore himself, revive his career and repair his reputation. Shortly after his arrival, he meets Eli Joseph, a Lebanese immigrant working as a justice of the peace and taxi driver. That encounter marks the beginning of a business partnership and friendship. Thirteen-year-old Ida is the daughter of Eli and his common-law wife Esme. While Ida's mother is a stout black woman, whose mixed background is African and Chinese, Ida favors her father. Her long black hair and dark eyebrows draw attention to her large, expressive eyes. Her good looks get her noticed by local boys --- and the island's famous movie star. Flynn finds the teenager charming. They share a love of horseback riding. He buys her a horse and nicknames it "Ida-Rider," but steers clear of any romantic involvement. He already has one soon-to-be-ex-wife living in California and plans to marry another Hollywood starlet once his divorce is final. After Flynn buys Navy Island, which centuries earlier had been visited by Captain Bligh, he has a mansion built and swimming pool dug. Flynn becomes a semi-permanent resident and throws lavish parties. Visitors to his mansion include Hollywood stars, world-famous authors and the idle rich. During his movie-making absences, Ida keeps in touch through letters. She falls in love with him and believes he is in love with her, until he returns to Jamaica with Paulette, his new wife. When Ida is 15, Flynn invites her to one of his parties. The next morning, while the other guests are passed out or still sleeping, he and Ida go horseback riding. That's when their affair begins. Before long Ida becomes pregnant. As soon as Flynn finds out about her pregnancy, he hastily departs for London. He leaves it up to his good friend, Baron Karl von Ausberg, to say goodbye. Months later Ida gives birth to a baby girl. May is fair-skinned, with eyes like her famous father's. Family circumstances as a result of death and illness cause Ida to leave May behind and head for New York, but she promises to return for her dau

Beautiful, Seductive, Utterly Compelling

This wonderful book takes a wide view; it spans cultures and generations, and it conveys the sensuous and seductive beauty of the island paradise of Jamaica. And it tells the story of two beautiful women -- Ida who in her teens becomes the lover of Errol Flynn and bears him an illegitimate child, and that daughter May, who grows up a little wild but who also reveals herself by the end of the book to be capable of fierce and redemptive loyalty. The writing is as seductive as the story. Cezair-Thompson knows just where to place a metaphor to evoke a vivid sense of place -- whether that be through the deafening sound of rain on a corrugated zinc roof or the view of the dark night sky billowing above like a sheet of cloth -- but her writing is restrained, not overloaded, and the style never interferes with the compelling story she is telling. She is also a virtuoso with the Jamaican dialect, and (as in her first book -- The True History of Paradise) she slips effortlessly in and out of a dazzling range of linguistic registers. "The Pirate's Daughter" raises fascinating questions about identity and belonging, and never far below the surface are serious issues of race and class. But Cezair-Thompson never preaches. She has the restraint to allow political questions to weave through the book in a way that is provocative but not simplistic. Her characters have complex racial identities but they are never reduced to them, and they contradict their own principles in ways that mirror the complex histories and behaviors of real people. This book is a shimmering delight to read. I wish someone would make it into a movie. The glamour and beauty of the characters and the story (and the book's sheer sense of style) belong on the screen. One of the most pleasurable reading experiences I've had in a long time.

"You shake him hand, you no shake him heart."

The tale begins with the larger-than-life presence of Errol Flynn, the great swashbuckling hero of the pirate movies, the stage set for an exotic adventure, a movie star who purchases his own private island near Port Antonio, Jamaica, building an estate and a reputation as a playboy extraordinaire, advised by a Port Antonio businessman and friend Eli Joseph. The two men share a love of conversation and grand ideas, Eli failing to notice his thirteen-year-old daughter's adoration of Flynn. Accompanying her father to Navy Island, Ida is enthralled by a luxurious lifestyle beyond her experience. By the time she is fifteen, Ida is pregnant with Flynn's child. Given this dramatic turn of events, one might expect the movie star to do the right thing by his friend's daughter, but it is not in Flynn's nature to consider the feelings of others, still pursued by litigation for other underage conquests: "He felt as though he had some sort of moral immunity." Flynn sailing away, Ida is overwhelmed, her father in increasingly poor health. Faced with great responsibilities and few choices, Ida provides as best she can for May and Eli, but circumstances defeat her; when an opportunity to make a decent living in New York arises, Ida leaves three-year-old May and her ageing father in the hands of friends, hoping to bring them both to New York. As many immigrants discover, America is not easily conquered; it is only through a stroke of luck that Ida encounters an acquaintance from Flynn's Navy Island days, Baron Karl von Ausberg. Karl is enchanted by the beautiful young woman and offers marriage. Eventually, Ida returns to Port Antonio as the wife of a baron, but at considerable cost to the relationship with her daughter. While Ida has attended to her husband's needs, May has suffered, taunted and chased by local children, the brunt of their jokes, the child and her grandfather long neglected in Ida's absence. How then to rectify her impulsive decisions, the illegitimate child, the long years of separation, marriage to the baron? Ida's task is daunting, perhaps impossible; the following years offer predictable challenges in a broken relationship, the sensitive May solitary and often taciturn, but diligent in writing an imaginative journal of pirates and their ribald enterprises. Against this extraordinary background, a portrait emerges, the image shadowed by the movie star who has left two women in his dramatic wake, a daughter's imagination nurtured by the images projected on a theater screen. Everything about this story is larger-than-life, the mortal Flynn dying prematurely, his legacy a lover who still fantasizes about their romantic hours and a daughter who needs much but receives little, other than a chance afternoon with her father. From post-World War II to Jamaica's eventual independence from Britain and chaotic struggle toward self-rule, May struggles with an identity eclipsed by her mother's beauty. The Pirate's Daughter is rich with island history,