Bivouac

When his father dies in suspicious circumstances, Ferron Morgan's trauma is increased by the conflict within his family and his father's friends over whether the death is the result of medical negligence or a political assassination. Ferron has lived in awe of his father's radical commitments but is forced to admit that, with the 1980s' resurgence of the political Right in the Caribbean, his father had lost faith, and was 'already dead to everything that had meaning for him'. Ferron's response to the death is further complicated by guilt, particularly over his recent failure to protect his fiancée, Dolores, from a brutal rape. He begins, though, to investigate the direction of his life with great intensity, in particular to confront his instinct to keep moving on and running from trouble. This novel is a portrayal of Jamaica at a tipping point in its recent past; a story of one man's private grief and dislocation that explores the psyche of a nation and a cultural movement that has lost its footing. When Ferron Morgan's family is thrown in turmoil by the suspicions surrounding the mysterious death of his father, his life is swept away in a tide of guilt and filial duty. The story suggests that the answers to the future can only be surmised once the past has been revisited.