Cherie Jones is a lawyer based in Barbados. She won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 1999. She then studied Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam in 2015, where she won both the Archie Markham Award and the A.M. Heath Prize. In 2015 she was also awarded a full fellowship from the Vermont Studio Centre. A collection of inter-connected stories set in a different small community in Barbados won the third prize in the Frank Collymore Endowment Awards in 2016
"'Let me tell you about a little girl like you that didn't listen to her mother.' And Wilma tells Lala the story of the One-Armed Sister."
In Baxter's Beach, Barbados, Lala's grandmother, Wilma, tells her a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers. For Wilma, it's the story of a wilful adventurer, who ignores the warnings of those around her, and suffers as a result.
When Lala grows up, she sees the story offers hope - of life and love after losing a baby in the most terrible of circumstances and marrying the wrong man.
And Mira Whalen? Her story is about keeping alive, trying to make sense of the fact that her husband has been murdered, and that she didn't get the chance to tell him that she loved him after all.
HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE is a powerful, visceral novel of lives across race and class, and of the sacrifices some women make to survive.
A crime-riddled literary novel, Jones's
atmospheric debut has a
multiracial, multigenerational cast who are brilliantly and even-handedly portrayedJones's
forensic prose reveals a society riven by hardship, betrayal and inequality... A novel of great
elegance and verve -
hard to believe it's a debutIntensely compelling...You are
ensnared in a web with these characters and their trauma; their claustrophobia becomes your own.
It's a startling achievement. There is very little light in this novel, but
what shines through instead is a pitiless truth that stays with you long after the story endsOne of Jones's many gifts is
the ability to show us flawed human beings with their humanity fully intact, to call us to
examine the terrible beast within ourselves... Jones
balances the novel's graphic violence with prose that is both evocative and wistful, haunting.
Generational trauma is braided through with grief in the same over-under-over-under way that Lala cornrows the hair of her white customers. For these tourists, Paradise is an escape from their reality; for Lala and the locals,
Paradise is the reality they long to escape.
One where secrets shroud truth and darkness steals not just arms, but entire souls Here is a bright new star. Cherie Jones has
talent abounding, drawing us with
skill, delicacy and glorious style into a vortex of Bajan lives on the edge, clashing across class and colour divides. This is
one of the strongest, most assured and heart-wrenching debuts I have ever readA
hard-hitting and unflinching novel from
a bold new writer who tackles head-on the brutal extremes of patriarchal abuseSet in Barbados, this novel
unflinchingly explores the violence, trauma and sadness of its characters but
is written with total beauty and insight. These people won't leave you any time soon and marks Cherie Jones as
a writer of immense powerVisceral and hauntingThis book u
nfolds around the reader like ripples in water, it offers an
unflinching vision of what it means to have a body and to fight to protect that body, i
t demands attention.
These are characters' voices I will be hearing for a long time and a book I will be recommending to everyoneA
gripping thriller, a symphony of voices and
a novel of deep empathyCherie Jones' attention to detail [delves] deep into the
intimate moments of each woman. A
secret language forms between you, as the reader, and the women of Baxter's Beach. Acts of violence come out of nowhere and feel
deeply personal...
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House reeled me in and hasn't quite let go of me yet.A
dark tale of incest, domestic violence and murder, set against a backdrop of generational poverty, and a bracingly fatalistic account of male violenceAn
extraordinarily hard-hitting and
evocative novel that
packs a tremendous punch with its repercussions of
generational trauma, pin-sharp characterisations and
strong sense of placeCherie Jones'
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House is an
intricately plotted allegory that explores the consequences of believing that you know better than the women who made you and
charts the inheritance of trauma that is all too common in Caribbean women's lives. With
rare compassion and deft storytelling, Jones renders a narrative that is
haunting and unforgettableRare is the first book that reveals the writer fully formed, the muscles and sinews of her sentences firm and taut, the voice distinctly her own
