An extract from 'Black Rock'

The novel's cover is a detail from 'Grand Rivere' (2001-2002) by Trinidad-based British artist Peter Doig. 

"There were no answers. I had nothing. There was only heat and the bright light that made that kind of heat. There was no shade, nowhere to rest, nowhere that the sun was not. You follow your life, you don't lead your life. I could sing with pain. Sing so high, high, high. Would my mother hear my singing? Once I had nothing. Now I had less than nothing. My whole life. My whole life I wanted to know my father. I wanted him more than anybody. More that Dr Emmanuel Rodiguez. I shall never know happiness. The light was on the other side of the world, in Southhampton, England. All my life I stepped towards it, little steps. I was halfway there and then I sank. The light pulled me from my darkness. I remembered the light when everything was bad. And now you put out the light. Just like that. I had less than nothing. It couldn't be like this. It couldn't be this way. God is good. They say God is good. How was that so.

When Aunt Tassi came home, she found me in my room, sitting on the floor looking at photographs she had given me. When I told her what had happened, she brought her hands up to her face..."

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FROM Trinidadian/Irish novelist Amanda Smyth's Black Rock, Chapter 35. The book was this month nominated for an NAACP Image Award for best debut fiction and is available at the Reader's Bookshop. READ and interview with the author here.