Letters from My Dad...and Reflections of My Mother

This is a story about a family in Trinidad whose lives pivot around their great grandmother's failed abortion in 1884, which created a dynasty from a little known Caribbean island. Slavery had been abolished on the island of Martinique, but change had not come easy for much of the freed colored people. While some continually practice their age-old African beliefs and customs for survival, obeah was one of the practices that was prevalent on the island among the colored people, and even desperately sought out by some of the most influential and aristocratic white plantation owners. Being concern about her husband, Pierre, and deeply fearful about having to amplify their impoverished way of living, Marie-Lucie apprehensively began to dress in the early morning. Silently she left her shack to convene with an old girot, hoping to terminate the life of the growing fetus. But in trying to terminate her pregnancy, she almost ended her own life. Recovering from the failed attempt to abort, she became excited during her pregnancy, and it's only then after the child was born that she became quite jubilant about her beautiful baby girl, Eliza. The story continues in a rich and graphic environment of the family in Trinidad, furthermore played throughout the years against the colorful and cultural background of Trinidad and Tobago, its people, the steel bands, the countryside, and its beaches, along with its aging structures and rustic environment. This story started with letters from a suitor.