BY PARVATI PERSAUD-EDWARDS

THE blurb on the back of Godfrey Wray’s first novel, ‘Beyond Revenge’ says that it embraces several genres – suspense, romance, science fiction and drama. I will add one more drama – travelogue.

The Ministry of Tourism should embrace this book. And although Wray incorporates Jonestown, Guyana’s ghettoes such as Albouystown and Tiger Bay; as well as the mental asylum in Berbice, he manages to do so in a contextual way that makes even these places worthy of interest. But above all, he describes the indigenous way of life and the interior locations so graphically and realistically, and with such evident knowledge of their Eden-like ambience, that anyone would want to experience the divine grandeur of Guyana as Irish born Ms Megan did.

As one reads this book, one wonders about the author. It is a rare man who could write with such insight into the mind of a woman. Even rarer is the male author who promotes the empowerment of women to the extent of giving them ‘cojones’ in order to defeat the male protagonists who violate their bodies and their rights.
Wray’s transition from journalist to novelist is not completely smooth and his descriptive methodologies bear a hint of the amateur; but his story and storytelling overshadow this and makes this first novel ‘unputdownable’.

The soldier heroine’s betrayal by her colonel lover, who sacrifices her to the mnemonics project by collaborating with his American CIA counterpart to make her a guinea pig for America’s memory replacement project, is the catalyst that takes her to the point of revenge – and beyond.
Abused women everywhere – from every walk of life, will get supreme satisfaction from the justice Lizzie metes out to her rapist – taking them down in true jungle commando style – incorporating her army training and the self-defense techniques taught her by her godfather with her indigenous people’s cultural lore to defeat the finest from the American army. Their emasculation and humiliation at the hands of this beautiful Amazon may not be adequate punishment but is certainly enough to evoke a sense of vindication.

Yes, tears are cathartic and she does cry like the emotional woman that she is, as women have done since time immemorial when faced by the betrayal of the men they love; but then she wipes those tears and does battle – for herself and for other abused women.
Wray explores and makes a myth of the concept that women are weak. He extols the fact that women have always been the torchbearers of humankind, but remains uninspired by the egoistic male species and their superior brawn; so he has given his heroine muscles with which to cut them down to size.

Unapologetically, Wray supports not sparing the rod and spoiling the child when he writes, “Many persons admit that they are better persons because of the tough, homemade discipline.”
The enigma Wray’s heroine was faced with was a good Catholic girl, coached and tutored all her life by a mentor who was a Roman Catholic priest, caught in a dilemma where her human instincts for vengeance competed with her religious upbringing. Lizzie finds herself questioning the God who could have allowed such atrocious acts to be committed on her and Wray cleverly and sensitively creates correlation of the two diverse dimensions of her personality to bring his book to a climax.

The real love story transcends the romance between Lizzie and her lover to encapsulate the spiritual bond between her parents and the stunning revelation of the identity of the father she always wondered about…
Wray’s characters are real and likeable but the fact that the underdog becomes the winner in a very believable way, although a much tried story-line is very truein this instance.
He interweaves the various lifestyles of the Guyanese communities – from the ghetto to the beauty of the Amerindian way of life in a manner that will enable the Caribbean Diaspora to feel at home and the wider readership to discover something both riveting and edifying.
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REMARKS FROM HUBERT WILLIAMS re BEYOND REVENGE
It is beyond my ken why “Beyond Revenge” is not already a widely acclaimed West Indian literary work. Indeed, had I been its author, I would have thought that I had produced something of which to be justly proud.
Having received your autographed copy yesterday afternoon, I began by thinking that I would devote only as much time as was required to complete the first chapter. It would be the final night of my visit to New York, and it was natural to think that other matters would, too, demand time and attention. But “Beyond Revenge” was both demanding and vengeful, and, like a jealous mistress, permitted no respite until it was satiated, or, rather, its pages exhausted – all carefully read. I think it an exceptional piece of work; and hope that soon it will be discovered by many buyer/readers.

It may be flippantly deemed a romance novel, but its depth goes beyond much of what I have encountered from a number of other West Indian authors whose work has won acclaim. Have I any reservations? Of course, I have. But there are always author’s prerogatives which readers really do not have the right to challenge. There are some minor oddities (just a few) which I have noted and will bring to your attention, so that in the event of a reprint the necessary corrections can be made. But minor errors are not what I was referring to with the use of ‘reservations’. To me, the end (final few pages) was a deflation, whereas the quality of the book seemed to deserve a crescendo, something that seemed to have been promised (almost) on page 174. In books which have more than a modicum of romance, women readers (and many men too) prefer a happy ending, where the male, if contrite, reunites with the woman he has hurt but truly loves, and who has much to give but only to him.

The current end seems to destroy three lives (Robert, Yvonne, Elizabeth), consigning two women still beautiful and in full bloom to an existence of lovelessness and man-hunting of a different kind. Mother Theresa-ism for women of such bountiful physical gifts cannot be sufficient. To my eyes, the book’s climax might better have been a sexual climax, with an ecstatic Robert and Elizabeth married and back in bed for the first time since the betrayal. Even a full repeat description of the sensuality expressed on Pages 45/46 might have been the perfect end. It seems an oddity, too, that a highly trained, skilled and dedicated professional soldier would so insult the trust/confidence of the commander-in-chief’s on-the-spot promotion by resigning shortly thereafter for no apparent reason, making meaningless the injunction (page 176) that “the army is one of the finest institutions in this country. I urge every one of you to help keep it that way.”