Englischsprachige Literatur

Carty-Williams Candice

Queenie

Trapeze/Orion/Hachette, London 2019

Galbraith3

Another “first” in the chick-lit category, written by the 30-year-old journalist cum marketeer Carty-Williams, who was born in London to parents of Jamaican origin. I am sure the long passages of meaningless what´s app conversations are transferred from the author´s personal account without much sublimating.

And this is the plot of the novel in a nutshell, enriched by explicit sex scenes, nervous breakdowns and soul-searching, experienced by the unique social experience of a person of colour.

“Black lives matter” is lurking in the background together with suffering from racial discrimination, shown by the protagonist Queenie´s white boyfriend, who abandons her.

Naturally, every white person is full of racist behaviour, even without knowing it. On the other hand Carty-Williams shows the same racist tendency when talking about Queenie´s Jewish friend Cassandra (!) who is described as very rich, very bossy and constantly giving psychological advice that is not asked for by Queenie.

All in all Queenie is the prototype of the Jamaican girl, everybody without closer knowledge has in the back of their minds.

So what?