BOOK REVIEW: Growing Up Newry, by C.A. Newry

 

Growing Up Newry, by C.A. Newry

This is more than a childhood memoir. 

C.A. Newry may be writing about growing up, but he asks uncomfortable questions about the world in which he became the man he is. 

Too often, we look back with a nostalgic view, a sepia-tinged perspective of a world that was not quite what we wished it might have been. 

C.A. Newry instead looks with an unvarnished eye, not glossing over the awkward facts or the uncomfortable situations. 

He recites the people he remembers like the beads on a rosary, counting them off as too many went to fates that left them in prison or dead by the road. 

He recalls the way people treated those who were gay in the neighbourhood, complete with the uncomfortable language that goes with that. 

And through it all, you sense the path he took to become the man of today, full of this bundle of memories that don't fit together as a happy journey. 

C.A. Newry is well known in The Bahamas as a raconteur, a polemicist - I tend to think of him as the court jester, able to wrap uncomfortable truths up inside a laugh, a joke, as if to say look what I just made you think about, but also look, I made you smile. 

That wit and wisdom wrapped together are to be found in these pages. 

Do we learn who the author really is after reading this? No, but then it is clear he is still on that journey - still learning, still making others think, and yes, still smiling. 

Altered Instinct Rating: 5/5

Growing Up Newry is available on Amazon here.