A review by lydiature_
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

challenging funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i bought this on a whim. im familiar (obviously) of the treatment of black people living in the united states during less than ideal times (understatement of the century), but i didn’t know much about non-american black people living in england. so i decided to give this a shot!

the writing style reminded me a lot of “the mermaid of black conch” in terms of the vernacular/dialect. the characters were pretty interesting, and they seemed to represent the different types of immigrants found in a new country. 

the cast of characters is very diverse and distinct. they’re from all over the west indies—jamaica, trinidad, barbados, etc. there’s moses who has been in london years longer than most people. he’s a hard worker and wise, wanting to do well. but his desire for a better life is not more important than other migrants. he helps when he can. there’s captain, who was originally sent to london to become a lawyer. that didn’t happen. instead, he became lazy and tried to take advantage of the welfare system. but that’s not entirely his fault. 1950s england—like captain and galahad discussed—is more subtle with their racism. while america is overt with the segregation, england covers their racism with kind words and politeness. i personally think that’s worse because it gave false hope to the thousands of migrants seeking better working conditions & hope for their families.

even though the subject matter is kind of bleak, the tone is pretty casual and funny. the humor aspect actually reminded me A LOT of zadie smith (especially her “white teeth”). there was a scene where five  saw harris (a black man) at the whitest party & said to him (with a couple of white women hanging off his arms), “harris, you old reprobate! what happening?” im sorry but i screamed when i read this 😭💀 i felt so bad for harris because things got worse (and absurd) for him during the whole party scene. poor guy.

another scene that made me laugh was when galahad hunted pigeons to eat and he was yelling out “coo coo” to get their attention 😭 like even though it was sad that he had to resort to eat pigeons, it was still funny. this whole book is the essence of the tiktok audio “no no, but it’s not funny, is it?” 💀

i really loved the characters. even though there was a lot of jumping around as far as the plot/timeline goes, i was very fond of the characters. they were flawed but likeable. and FUNNY!! moses was so instigating 😭 i want to be as unbothered as five 💀

and just like zadie smith, selvon got serious real fast. toward the end, moses talks about how london has not accepted any of the immigrants. the immigrants are merely tolerated, not accepted. for those immigrants who have married english people (white), their children will face discrimination. if moses makes a lot of money, he wants to go back to his country and be around people who love him and accept him. not spend the rest of his life in a country that will never accept him. and that’s very understandable. at the end of the day, to be known and accepted is more important than to have money.

i will say though that there was a long passage on pages 92-102 without any punctuation and it drove me NUTS. i skipped that section, full-disclosure. i hate when there’s run-on sentences 😭 it gave me a flashback to “hurricane season” which i had to dnf because it was making my brain hurt .

note: i don’t recommend starting with this one, though. the vernacular-if you’re not used to it—will be difficult to understand. start with “white teeth” by zadie smith , “the color purple” by alice walker, and “the mermaid of black conch” by monique roffey first. and then come back to this one.
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