Q&A with Donna Hemans, author of "Tea By The Sea"
It’s an honor for me to officially open this Literature interview section with Donna Hemans. She just released her new book “Tea By The Sea” and was on a blog promo tour all throughout June. Today she is with Karukerament. We talked about her writing process, the diaspora experience as well as parenthood and her take on Caribbean literature.
Let’s start with your writing process. What’s your favourite place among the ones you described in the story?
Anchovy. My father grew up in Anchovy and the house that Lenworth chooses as his refuge is actually my grandparents’ house. I have a lot of memories of Sunday afternoon visits, my grandfather standing on the verandah and looking down the hill at my parents, my sisters and me arriving. When I first thought of using the house as the setting, I had in mind the way the house and yard looked on one of my visits. The house was empty then. The last tenant had left, the yard was overgrown and there was a random bedsheet on the verandah. It looked like someone was either squatting or had come to use the empty house for a late-night tryst.
Like so many other Caribbean families, mine is a family of migrants. And, one of the things about migration in general is the broken ties with a family home, land, customs. Within my family there has been a lot of talk about selling family land, about who will take care of it now that so many of us have migrated and my father’s siblings who now own it are elderly. Aside from those practical discussions, I also think about what it meant to my grandparents who were born some 70 years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, to own land and build a house they could pass on to future generations. In the end, I realized that using the house as the setting and describing it so fully was part of my attempt to preserve in writing a place that I believe will soon pass out of my family.
Although the physical descriptions of your characters were concise, the way you described their Black skin stood out to me as you made them look matter-of-factly luminous. How did you decide on your characters’ appearance? And what is your approach on how to describe them to your readers?
When I’m writing, I can see a person in my mind. I have a sense of how that person looks but I’m usually more concerned with what the individual character does. Too often in literature or even in movies, the darker-skinned person is associated with less desirable traits or is made out to be the villain. That is not an idea I want to perpetrate in any way at all.
Generally, I describe a character only when the description is pertinent to the story. In the case of Opal, her resemblance to her mother—and specifically her unusual eye color—were important to Lenworth’s response to his child. When he looks at his daughter, he always sees Plum—the woman he abandoned—and he is always confronted with the weight of his decision to take the baby. Throughout Opal’s life, she appears to be the odd member of her family; she looks different from her father, step-mother and brothers. Her physical difference helps to bring home the point that Opal feels isolated within the family unit.
There are a couple of references to real-life historical events such as the Panama Canal construction, the slavery system, did you make specific research to incorporate these elements into the story?
Yes, I did some research to incorporate some pieces of history into the story. But some real-life references are based on pieces of information I’ve long known. In some ways, mentioning these events is a not to the fact that the past is always with us in small and large ways.
As someone from Guadeloupe living in France, I was particularly interested in the representation of the diaspora in this book. The story takes place between Brooklyn and Jamaica. What would be “home” for Plum and Opal, your two main female characters?
Home for Plum is Brooklyn. It’s the place of her first memories. In the case of Jamaica, her parents presented the island as punishment, a place to send wayward children who couldn’t be controlled or a place to send her to keep her out of trouble. While Plum does have good memories there, it’s not the place that she thinks makes her who she is. On the other hand, home for Opal is Jamaica. That’s the place of her first memories. In America, as Opal grows older and begins to look more and more like her mother, she also becomes increasingly aware of losing her father. He begins to turn away rather than face the weight of what he has done. Brooklyn is tied to Opal’s “loss” of her father who once treated her like a precious stone.
I think of “home” as the place where a person feels he or she will always be welcome. Home often is not necessarily a place, but who or what is there for you when you want to return.
This is very random, but can I just ask something about Alan? Was it important that Alan’s character was not from Jamaica but from another island?
It wasn’t necessarily important. I know many people with a partner from a different Caribbean island. Especially in Brooklyn, which is home to a diverse population of Caribbean nationals, it seemed natural that he would be from a different island.
So let’s talk about parenthood with the father figure first. Caribbean fatherhood is usually portrayed in a negative light. Lenworth is the one raising Opal. Yet, he never feels like he’s her father. He just cannot connect with her. Why did you choose this approach to the Lenworth/Opal relationship?
With Lenworth, Opal’s strong resemblance to Plum is pertinent to Lenworth’s inability to connect with Opal. As Opal grows older and looks more and more like her mother, Lenworth’s guilt grows. Rather than look at her and face the consequences of his actions, he looks away from Opal. If he had been able to forge a stronger bond with Opal, it would mean he felt no guilt about what he had done.
In addition to his guilt, I think Lenworth’s inability to connect with Opal is tied to his broader character in general. He disconnects from everyone in his life—Plum, his mother, and even his wife, Pauline. He is motivated more by how he is perceived by others and his ability to control his life than by his ability to love.
How would you describe motherhood from Plum’s POV considering that she didn’t actually raise Opal?
For Plum, motherhood is tied to loss—loss of her child, loss of her agency. Lenworth makes a choice for her and takes away her ability to make a decision about her own life. While Plum doesn’t become the strong resilient Black woman we often see portray, out of necessity, Plum becomes overprotective. Once she marries Alan and has the twin girls, she keeps the girls close to her because she fears losing them. With the twin’s, motherhood is a choice, an opportunity for Plum to regain agency and make decisions about her own life.
How hard was it to build the pre-pregnancy Plum/Lenworth couple? Did the age factor make you hesitant about some aspects of the story?
Certainly, the age factor was an issue. At the time they met, Lenworth was in his early twenties—not significantly older than Plum—but their relationship was complicated by the fact that as an adult working at the school Plum attended he was in a position of authority over her. There’s a long history in Jamaica of older men preying on school girls—some who are barely teenagers. That wasn’t the case with Lenworth, but I wanted to be mindful of what we often see and how some of these relationships stunt the potential for young women. I also didn’t want to veer into making Lenworth appear to be a pedophile. That would be another book altogether. I wanted to focus on the choices he made and the lingering impact on Plum and Opal.
I’d have another set of questions about the ending, but I don’t want to ruin it for my dear Karukerament readers because the ending lets us find our own interpretation. So let’s talk a little bit more about Caribbean culture and its influence on the international scene.
In order to promote Caribbean music, I use the hashtag #streamcaribbean and I also make soundtracks/playlists for books I read. Which song would you use to create a soundtrack for Tea by the Sea?
I think of Etana’s music when I think of Tea by the Sea. The entire “I Rise” album, and especially “I Am Not Afraid” and “Rise,” feel like the soundtrack for the book.
What’s your take on the place of Caribbean literature on the international scene?
What I like about Caribbean literature these days is a conscious effort by Caribbean writers to create outside of the boxes that once seemed to define Caribbean literature. While it sometimes appears that the publishing industry generally expects Caribbean writers to write about colonialism and race or the immigrant making his way in the home of his former colonist, our stories have always been broader than that. Yes, those factors can play a significant role in our everyday lives. But our stories are more than how we suffer because of external forces, and our stories should rightly reflect the diversity of our culture and lives.
Bonus question: What comes to your mind when you read the word Karukerament?
I’ve been thinking that perhaps there’s a Jamaican equivalent of Karukerament. But I can only think of “bashment,” and though it applies to a dancehall party I want to think of it as a party and broad celebration of Caribbean literature and culture.
Spot on! Thank you so much for your time with us and I hope “Tea by the Sea” will get translated in French, so I can talk about it with even more people.
Thank you Donna Hemans. Tea by the Sea is available since June 9th 2020. Make sure to get your copy Red Hen Press, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon. Here’s my spoiler-free review.