'Dancing Lessons' with Olive Senior

Laura Tanna, LETTER FROM LAURA

The Jamaican launch of Olive Senior's first novel was a great success. One of the most satisfying aspects of it was Senior's gracious, witty style as she admitted to her large audience of fans, friends and family that the very first time she was asked to give a poetry reading, many years ago, she was so shy that she enlisted the aid of Velma Pollard and Edward Baugh to read her poems for her!

Dancing Lessons is the 13th book by Senior to be published. But as Dancing Lessons is her first novel, the Department of Literatures in English at UWI Mona, which Senior wryly commented she would not address by its acronym of LIE, examined the novel in detail. One of Dr Michael Bucknor's comments in his opening address which hit home is how Senior uses gossip as a narrative tool to create "conspiratorial intimacy" with her readers. From that opening line: "How was I to know he had a bad heart?" the central character, Gertrude, an ageing country woman in an upscale Kingston retirement home, keeps us informed of all other characters' foibles in this very Jamaican book.

What originally struck me was that in the first 70 pages, Senior integrates 11 serious subjects into the narrative: racial and class distinctions, poverty, emotional abuse of children, physical abuse of spouses, mental illness, neuroses from childhood deprivations, neglect of elder parents, the heartbreak of having an adulterous spouse, problems of teenage drug abuse, and the pain of absent fathers, part of "the wounded Jamaican psyche." So I believe her when she tells me the novel is in no way autobiographical, that "I wasn't so much interested in writing the story of my family as the story of the Jamaican family". But she is interested in writing the truth about Jamaica.

In an interview with me eight years earlier, she revealed what it means to her to be a writer. Senior said then: "When I was in Montego Bay, I had a couple things published in The Gleaner. One was a piece I wrote about Christmas. I used to hate Christmas as a child because unhappy children hate Christmas, as you know. Or you may not know. I wrote about what Christmas was like in rural Jamaica with penny whistles, fee fees, and how we celebrated. I did say that, as a child, you had your stocking hung up, you got presents, and I made the fatal mistake of saying it was always what you needed but never what you wished for. My great aunt was alive then, the one who raised me and loved me dearly. She was really upset by this. I do seem to remember it was the first time I was aware of how what you wrote could hurt you, could hurt other people, and that was never my intention. For a long time after that, I felt very constrained in my writing. It took me a long time to realise that if you're going to be a writer, you just have to go ahead and tell the truth and not worry about people's feelings." She added: "I'm really interested in writing about Jamaica, about all the people that make up Jamaica, who are not me. They're men, women, they're old people, they're black people, white people, rich people, poor people." In Dancing Lessons she accomplishes this admirably.

depiction of a Rasta taxi driver

Her depiction of a Rasta taxi driver, and his consummate kindness towards Gertrude, rings just as accurate as Senior's depiction of "the ones who couldn't afford to take too much time off from work, even when their children were killed", or even her depiction of countrymen "with some colour and some property who were as bold and lusty as their animals", or her depiction of their victims: "I was a ripening fruit to be plucked - and discarded for being too green." It's a painful read at times, an agony of shy, awkward need softened with rural Jamaicanisms.

The book is infused with the pain of a child having been "given away", Shirley's words about her sister Celia, or from Gertrude's point of view, of her child, Celia, being "borrowed" and never returned, except for occasional visits. I remember Olive telling me "at the age of four I went to spend vacation with relatives who live in Westmoreland and never went back home." Of course, she did return to visit her family in Trelawny, but the feeling of being between two kinds of Jamaicas discussed in Part One of this interview influenced her treatment of a subject which affects so many Jamaican families. Where she is significantly different is what she said in the earlier interview: "I've never wanted children. I've always thought: 'My God, I'm so unhappy as a child. I'll never bring children into the world to be this unhappy.' I really felt that. I think I've tended to avoid commitment of any sort. I think that's really what defines me. I hate to admit it, but it's true." Yet what has defined her is her commitment to her writing, and we are the beneficiaries of her books, her "children".

In discussing this novel, Senior said: "I was intrigued by the distinction being made between being a mother and mothering because although we know they are two different things, we don't normally think about them in this way. I actually started thinking of this in relation to my own mother because her mother died when she was a baby and she was raised by her father's family (in very different circumstances than G, let me hasten to say!). I guess I, myself, felt that I was not mothered, although I did have two sets of family to care for me. But I think what is important in shaping us, is what the child actually feels and believes, not what adults might perceive as 'reality'. I am fortunate because I found a way of exploring and dealing with my early emotional traumas through my creative life."

In probing further the relationship between her own childhood and the novel, I asked if one of the novel's themes is the exploration of whether emotional damage done to a person can ever be healed? Senior answered: "The main theme for me would be that people can overcome or transcend emotional damage, which is what I think G does over the course of the novel. But, as in real life, some people never manage to do so and fall by the wayside, as G's daughter [Shirley] does. I guess my own experience plays a part in the story of Celia. But I also want to add that anyone who knows me and my experience will also know that Celia's personality and experiences are quite different. But I guess she does represent me and the wider Jamaican phenomenon of children growing with people who are not their parents. This is a common theme in our literature and I've told it in different ways in my short stories and even in poems."

She further notes: "At the back of my mind was the question raised by the poet Linda Pastan about the Biblical Eve that has always haunted me: 'Can you be a good mother if you have never been mothered?' This led to the whole question of family relationships and how fraught they can be, especially between mothers and daughters. The novel is not based on real people but the thinking behind it is based on many people. Although the story is set in Jamaica, I would like to think that it has a universal dimension in that the complexities of family can be translated to any setting."

For a deeper understanding of the author, I would refer readers to my previous articles on Olive Senior.

'Brilliant and Insightful Writing', The Sunday Gleaner, December 11, 2011, pp. E1 & 3.

'One on One with Olive Senior', The Sunday Gleaner, October 17, 2004, p. F3.

'One on One with Olive Senior Part II', The Sunday Gleaner, October 31, 2004, p. F8.

'One on One with Olive Senior Part III', The Sunday Gleaner, November 7, 2004, p. F3.