ANGELA LEVY The Long Song ****

The structure of this book annoyed me - but the central story is compelling and very moving.

The setting is Jamaica before – and just after – the abolition of slavery. It purports to be the memoir of an old lady, Miss July, a former house-slave fathered by a white overseer on a sugar plantation. July's son, Thomas, a printer, plans to publish the memoir but he and his mother don't always agree about how her story should be told - as she keeps complaining in various comic interludes that I didn't find particularly funny.

But the core of the story she has to tell rings horribly true. It's not just the appalling brutality of some of the whites, but the ingrained racism of the apparently 'nice' ones, who when push comes to shove have no hesitation in treating their slaves (or former slaves) as animals.

All in all, it's well worth reading - and a real education if you're white.