‘If I Survive You’ by Jonathan Escoffery    (2022) – 256 pages

Topper and his wife Sanya and their two young sons, Delano and Trelawny, moved to Miami, Florida in the 1970s.

“You’re black, Trelawny. In Jamaica we weren’t, but here we are. Here there’s a ‘one drop’ rule.”

In grade school Trelawny tries to fit in with the Puerto Ricans; however they don’t accept him since he doesn’t speak Spanish. Later Trelawny is harassed by African-American boys after being mistaken for Puerto Rican.

The Jamaicans speak a colorful patois of English. Here is Trelawny’s father, Topper:

“You tell Sanya, Something wrong with the boy, but she tell you, Be patient. At him school open house, Trelawny’ teacher say she wan’ to put him in t’ing called Gifted. You say, what that, special ed? She say is for advanced children so him don’t get bored, but you tell her, Teach him to tie him shoe, then we can talk.”

The preceding paragraph is pretty much my story. What could seem more useless to a working-class father than a college degree in English?

I’m selfish. When I read a novel about people from a different country or from a different race or a different economic class, I want to get something out of it for myself. Sympathy or envy for their plight is not enough. In order to fully appreciate a work, I must feel a strong empathy for the characters.

‘If I Survive You’ entirely passes my empathy test.

‘If I Survive You’ is eight linked stories, but all of the stories involve the same characters in this one small family, so it feels much like a novel to me. Somehow the stories all fit together to form a complete picture of this Florida family.

This being Miami, Florida, hurricane Andrew topples the family house in 1992. Husband and wife Topper and Sanya split up, and Delano goes with the father while Trelawny stays with the mother.

Later at his father’s retirement party, his father tells Trelawny that he’s “defective”, so Trelawny gets the ax out of the garage and chops down his father’s favorite Ackee tree. His father then throws Trelawny out of the house.

In the final acknowledgments, author Jonathan Escoffery thanks, among others, the author Percival Everett “for pushing me to write unflinchingly”. This is advice Escoffery has surely taken in ‘If I Survive You’.

Grade:   A