Racing With The Rain
Racing with the Rain by Ken Puddicombe, MiddleRoad Publishers, 2012

Reviewed by Frank Birbalsingh
(Professor Emeritus Birbalsingh who is an anthologist and the author of many scholarly publications including ‘From Pillar to Post: The Indo- Caribbean Diaspora,’ ‘Passion and Exile: Essays in Caribbean Literature,’ ‘The Rise of West Indian Cricket: From Colony to Nation,’ and two anthologies of Indo-Caribbean writing ‘Jahaji’ and ‘Jahaji Bhai.’ His latest book on cricket, ‘Indian-Caribbean Test Cricketers and the Quest for Identity’ is now available. Birbalsingh is an acknowledged book reviewer.Racing in the Rain is the first novel of Guyanese-born Ken Puddicombe who, since 1971, has lived in Canada where he works as an accountant. Racing offers a fictional version of political events during a turbulent period,

from the 1960s to the 1980s, in the history of Guyana, formerly British Guiana. The novel is a roman a clef, one in which people and events may be identified through fictional names assigned to particular organisations, individuals or places, for example, “Liberty Home” for actual Freedom House, “Arawak Hotel” for Carib Hotel, “Kingsley” for Sydney King, and “Jack Hill” for Jack Kelshall.
The narrator Carl Dias is a Guyanese who lived through events in the novel before coming to Canada, and settling in Toronto where we first see him, in 1980, sixteen years after he left Guyana. He is Senior Economist at the Canadian Business Bank, and is separated from his Russian/Cuban partner Natasha and their two children – Alexei and Irina who play no active part in the novel. Carl receives news of the death of his father Augusto in Guyana, and his narrative consists of an account of his visit to Guyana to attend the funeral, except that chapters describing his visit are interspersed between reflections on his family or friends, and documentation of Guyana’s political history between the 1960s and 1980s.
The narrator’s surname betrays his origin in a Portuguese community, a Guyanese minority group who were brought to Guyana as indentured workers, from Madeira, during the mid-nineteenth century. The group have evidently done well since Carl’s father enjoys the status of a successful Georgetown business man, influential among the Conservatives (an actual political party – United Force – whose leaders are chiefly Portuguese or rich Indian-Guyanese) all vigorous supporters of free enterprise, and sworn enemies of the Reform Party (actual People’s Progressive Party which is supported mainly by Indian-Guyanese) and regarded as Marxist/Leninist or Communist. A third party, the Republican Party (actual People’s National Congress whose membership is largely African-Guyanese and ostensibly Marxist,) forms a strategic coalition with the Conservatives despite deep ideological differences, mainly because coalition brings blessings of the Kennedy administration in the US, and practical help from the C.I.A. and American Labour Unions who share a common anti-communist aim of depriving the Reform Party of power gained (by democratic means) from an electorate that is largely Indian-Guyanese.
The two strands of the novel’s plot consisting of action from the period of Carl’s visit in 1980 and from the tumultuous period of the 1960s with strikes, riots and other ructions, allow the reader to see both the collusion necessary to replace the Reform Party régime with one that is Republican, and the consequences of Republican rule, by 1980, when it had produced widespread food shortages, disorder, increased crime, corruption, repression and dictatorship that left Georgetown, once known as “the Garden City of the Caribbean” in mere shambles: “Signs of decay everywhere. Trenches were filled with stagnant water and garbage and tall reeds lined the banks. Buildings were weather-beaten. Streets were perforated with potholes and sidewalks rutted and cracked.” (p.310)
Puddicombe is both diligent and skillful in documenting the beauty of Guyana’s tropical vegetation, and the flavour and idiom of local speech and public banter that are part and parcel of everyday life, social habits and customs observed, for example, in a typical scene outside a cinema in Georgetown: “The aroma of black pudding, boiled corn and channa, ripe tamarind, freshly baked cassava pone drifted across to Carl as an old woman dispensed her snacks from a tray perched on top of a wooden soft drink crate.” (p.165). The sentence captures both the simple, improvised quality of the old woman’s business, and the mouth-watering appeal and natural warmth of her service. As for tropical rain, it gives the novel its title when, as boys, the narrator and his friends hear the roll of thunder, precursor to rain, and in the middle of their game, grab their marbles trying: “to outrun the rain before the eruption.” (p41)
But the politics of the novel and its characters are central. In such a maelstrom of political opinions and loyalties, objectivity is impossible, and Carl’s entire narrative including his acceptance of a Reform Party scholarship to study in communist Cuba declare his moderate, left-of-centre political sympathies, quite unlike the fanaticism of his father who believed that: “They [caterpillars] were like Communists, preying on people and taking everything away until the cupboard was bare. “ (p.52) Augusto Dias also boasted: “I’m not abandoning it [Guyana] to a Communist takeover. They’re going to have to take me out of here in a pine box.” [p.194) Augusto reflects the real fanaticism that caused destruction, looting and mayhem in the 1960s. It turns out he may even has supported a terrorist group – the X13. More than that, Carl discovers his half-brother Earl Singh and realises Augusto was not as upright as he claimed. Yet Augusto’s portrait, because of its hypocrisy, is all the more convincing.
While in Guyana, Carl is suspected of membership in a Toronto-based organisation – Restoration of Democracy (the Association of Concerned Guyanese) – which is believed to plan the overthrow of the Republican Party régime. Carl did attend one meeting of the group in Toronto, and although he did not join, the friend who invited him entered his name as a member which is now used by Guyanese security forces to accuse him of being a spy. Carl is trapped and helpless, in grave danger of never seeing his family again. Suspense builds as he is interrogated and tempted by intrigue and desperation. One of his interrogators, however, is a neighbour who, as a delinquent boy was helped by Augusto, and now comes to Carl’s rescue. Carl is then able to make amends to his half-brother Earl before he leaves. Whatever else it may be, Racing is an act of filial piety – one man’s loving homage to his father, warts and all.

(Ken Puddicombe is a professional Accountant who provided controllership for a number of companies in the private sector before he retired to pursue his love of writing. His writing has appeared in newspapers and literary journals in Canada and the U.K. Originally from British Guiana [now Guyana] in South America, he immigrated to Canada in 1970 and still lives there with his family. “Racing With The Rain” is his first novel. He is working on a second novel Junta and a collection of short stories entitled Down Independence Boulevard for early release. His genre is fiction, based on international locations but especially focused in Canada, the Caribbean and Guyana.)

Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email:oraltradition2002@yahoo.com

(By Petamber Persaud)