Augustown by Kei Miller – review

Kei Miller: the idea of flight runs through the book like a river. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The debut novel of poet Kei Miller is set in a fictional place that, as he puts it, bears a very strong resemblance to Jamaica’s August Town.

The book takes the form of a number of interconnected vignettes, an evolving portrait of a place: its people, its sounds, its scents. Driven by atmosphere more than plot, it still exerts a hold, the language clear as spring water. The characters are vividly drawn, particularly the blind Ma Taffy, who binds the episodes together, and the fastidious, insecure schoolteacher Mr Saint-Josephs. Miller explores cultural, religious and racial divisions in Jamaican society amid a wider dialogue about written and oral storytelling, and the way myths can shift through their retelling – the story of the Revivalist preacher Alexander Bedward a prime example of this. The idea of flight, spiritual, intellectual and physical, runs through the novel like a river.

Augustown is published by Weidenfeld (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £10.65