By Lorna Goodison
"From Harvey River" is the story of the "fabulous Harvey girls" in particular the author's mother, Doris who seemed to live in two places at once on the tropical island of Jamaica. Kingston, where she raised her daughter Lorna and her eight siblings, and Harvey River in the parish of Hanover where she was born and spent her childhood.
To grow up in Harvey River, named after her English grandfather, meant a life of Victorian niceties in her parents home combined with the rich bounty of the land for Doris Harvey. Even with her strong-willed mother Margaret and her dreamer of a father David plus her somewhat overbearing sister Cleodine and the rest of her siblings and extended family life was sweet and simple. When Doris meets and marries her husband Marcus Goodison, their fortunes change. His garage business failing, they are forced to move to Kingston and face the harsh urban lifestyle, and Harvey River becomes a place that Doris frequently returns to in her dreams.
To grow up in Harvey River, named after her English grandfather, meant a life of Victorian niceties in her parents home combined with the rich bounty of the land for Doris Harvey. Even with her strong-willed mother Margaret and her dreamer of a father David plus her somewhat overbearing sister Cleodine and the rest of her siblings and extended family life was sweet and simple. When Doris meets and marries her husband Marcus Goodison, their fortunes change. His garage business failing, they are forced to move to Kingston and face the harsh urban lifestyle, and Harvey River becomes a place that Doris frequently returns to in her dreams.
Lorna Goodison weaves together island lore with the story of her mother's life, from the eden of Harvey river to when "things changed" and they moved to Kingston. No matter how hard life became, however, the author remembers her mother's bottomless cooking pot, how she could sew clothes to fit any shape and the first word all her children learned to read was SINGER.
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