A review by rdebner
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau

4.0

What a mash-up of a story! By the time I got to the end, I'd completely forgotten that the book had started with the arrival of the city planner, and thus the ending came full circle. In order to tell the story of Texaco, the main narrator goes back to tell her father's story, which also tells the story of Martinique from that point forward. The book is a pleasure for anyone who: has read other Francophone Caribbean novels, doesn't need a purely linear plot line, and likes word play and creativity with language. While it is a complicated narrative, interspersing excerpts from Marie-Sophie's notebooks and commentary from the urban planner and the "word scratcher," it is an excellent story that attempts to reproduce the storytelling rhythms of a hybrid culture.