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BOOKS

STEPPING ON CRACKS

STEPPING ON CRACKS.  REFLECTIONS ON MY HOMELAND (With photo gallery)

After almost five decades away, Doreen, a retired senior citizen, returns to her birth country to discover whether she could spend the last days of her life in a place that had nurtured her and contributed to the woman she had become.  Indeed, she had departed just two years after British Guiana had received its independence from Great Britain, lowered the Union Jack, raised the Golden Arrowhead, renamed itself Guyana, and set out to chart its path as a cooperative republic.

At first everything seems new and exciting, but soon she finds herself sliding down a path of disillusionment.  The old culture resurfaces, trying to drown her in a morass, and soon her “first” world consciousness clashes with a “third” world reality.  Yet she finds pleasure in exploring and recording the history of the Linden area as well as the culture embedded deep in her psyche. Eventually, she finds herself stepping on the proverbial crack that would “break her mother’s back.”  After six months, she realizes that, like Thomas Wolfe, she “can’t go home again.”

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BLACK-WATER PEOPLE

This novel is a fictionalized account of the struggles of my mother’s family, the Allicocks, whose ancestor, the white Scottish owner of Plantation Noit Gedacht, had 8 children with Ann Mansfield, a colored woman.  The story explores the history of Linden (McKenzie/Mackenzie) and its place in the development of Guyana, including the conflict between the Allicocks and the Demerara Bauxite Company which acquired much of their ancestral land supposedly by false pretenses.

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BLACK-WATER CHILDREN

This novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Ann Mansfield, the colored woman who had eight children with Robert Frederick Allicock, and her family.  It explores her maternal ancestral roots in Africa, the family’s abduction from Africa and their horrendous journey via The Middle Passage, slavery in Guyana, as well as the budding Anti-Slavery movement.

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BLACK-WATER WOMEN

This is a framework novel which explores the struggles of four women surviving in the male dominated society of Guyana, S. America.  Returning home for her mother’s funeral, the author reminisces about the women who helped to shape her consciousness.  Many lived on the banks of the Demerara River.  The stories of Sara and her mother Cleo, Tina, and Sanka unfold within the context of the Guyanese culture – school days, teenage years, adult years, racial tensions, etc.

Order from iUniverse. You can also call to order at 1-800-AUTHORS.

Reader Reviews

Petamber Persaud  Guyana Times International  August 31 2018 Excerpt…… In her eighth book, Carmen Barclay Subryan has pushed the boundaries of her writing to another level after safely writing about what she knows and successfully canvassing through the genre of historical fiction mainly. The book is divided into two contrasting parts consisting of chapters one to six where she remembers and looks forward to enjoying some of those good old days and chapters seven…

Stepping on Cracks Reflections on my Homeland

In this series of short stories, the author has captured a great deal of historical information about the Upper Demerara River area, including influences on the lives of the inhabitants living there mainly during the 1960’s. This book is not only a cogent reminder of my roots but also of my youthful days in Linden.

Finding My Roots

Dr. Subryan’s stories span her years from adolescence to adulthood, and in that sense FINDING MY ROOTS AND OTHER STORIES is an “epic” work. It is of note that her quest begins with a story having the same name as her book. All of the stories that follow are significant secondary roots that help to firmly anchor her to Mackenzie, the Guyana place of her birth. Dr. Subryan’s quest is not a lonely one–readers…

FINDING MY ROOTS AND OTHER STORIES is an “epic” work

It is a surest sign of maturity when a people begins to represent themselves and their environment decidedly from their own points of view. Dr. Carmen Subryan’s books center on Linden, up the Demerara River in Guyana, South America, beginning long before it ever recognized itself as Linden, or even as a single community. Her work constitutes a distinctive addition to the Guyanese and Caribbean repertoire of ourselves. The ten short stories in this…

Collage of Life

This collection of short stories is brilliantly composed. It traps the essence of the history, culture, and aspects of the socioeconomic dynamics of the city of Linden/Mackenzie, one of the foremost of our mining towns in Guyana, South America. If stories can be considered cultural biopsies, then Dr. Subryan has produced a laboratory in which important and deliberate probing, processing, as well as culturing will go on without end.

Brilliantly Composed

A great read. Janice Beaman  

Stepping on Cracks

Stepping on Cracks is quite a complex work that does not follow the regular mold for a novel, but Doreen in the center holds together all of what appear to be digressions to form one compelling read.  Much of what compels the reader is not the major conflicts she has with her sister or lesser ones she has with other characters here and there but with her inner self, as she remembers what the…

Stepping on Cracks Reflections of my homeland

STEPPING ON CRACKS provides historical, political, and social information about Guyana and includes vivid details of how the political unrest of the 1960’s played out in Linden as well as its impact on race relations in Guyana to this day.  Dr. Subryan balances the more serious aspects of the book with humorous details depicting a wide range of Guyana’s cultural idiosyncrasies and folklore and paints a realistic word picture of the vibrancy of life…

Stepping on Cracks Reflections on my homeland.

These books are a heart warming historical discovery of my homeland.

Awesome and Accurate
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