Rogues in Paradise celebrates the Afro-British Caribbean Culture of Barbadosâand the quirky, fun-loving ordinary, and extraordinary people who call it home. In this thoughtful, funny, and provocative debut essay collection from tourism expert Ian R. Clayton, readers find themselves thrust into an evolving world: One that begs exploration of its history, its people, and its culture. Bajans come to life in vivid colour through a series of character vignettesâfrom their electrifying personalities to their mischievous mechanisms for survival to their quiet intensity. Each character jumps off the page in images as striking as the pictures painted by Woolly Hewitt or Darla Trotman.
With warmth and humour the stories explore humanity, heritage, and cultural responsibility. It speaks to a larger psychological question of character: how can they be so resilient after 300 years of slavery? Interwoven history and lucid storytelling move the narrative outward from personal observation, providing a rich backstory on how people navigate contemporary life against a complicated past.
â¨At its core, Rogues in Paradise redefines what it means to rise for one and as one in pursuit of the common good. It celebrates cultural identity, friendship, and adventure but, more than that, it celebrates the human spirit in us all.
Rogues in Paradise celebrates the Afro-British Caribbean Culture of Barbadosâand the quirky, fun-loving ordinary, and extraordinary people who call it home. In this thoughtful, funny, and provocative debut essay collection from tourism expert Ian R. Clayton, readers find themselves thrust into an evolving world: One that begs exploration of its history, its people, and its culture. Bajans come to life in vivid colour through a series of character vignettesâfrom their electrifying personalities to their mischievous mechanisms for survival to their quiet intensity. Each character jumps off the page in images as striking as the pictures painted by Woolly Hewitt or Darla Trotman.
With warmth and humour the stories explore humanity, heritage, and cultural responsibility. It speaks to a larger psychological question of character: how can they be so resilient after 300 years of slavery? Interwoven history and lucid storytelling move the narrative outward from personal observation, providing a rich backstory on how people navigate contemporary life against a complicated past.
â¨At its core, Rogues in Paradise redefines what it means to rise for one and as one in pursuit of the common good. It celebrates cultural identity, friendship, and adventure but, more than that, it celebrates the human spirit in us all.
Two Weeks to Judgment Day
Ace moves through the village like a fox on the prowlâagile, aware, cunning.
It is early. He wakes with the day, eats a banana, and drinks coconut water.
âItâs medicine, man,â he told me once.
âCoconut got to be young, picked long before they get hard with jelly, still small on the tree, no bigger than a cricket ball. Full of nourishment then, better than medicine. Keeps the system clean and fresh, good for the kidneys too. Plenty of iron, makes you strong like a lion.ââ¨
At 6 a.m. Ace heads out into the day, purposefully striding down Horse Hill, his hard feet stamping a rhythm onto the cool asphalt. âFlip, flap, slide, and slap.â
The village is quiet; the dogs eye him sleepily from their beds under the raised floors of the chattel homes along the road.
âGot to pay one thousand dollars or they throw me in jail,â he hums. âGot to find the money, man, or Iâll be sitting in a damp dark cell, with no unripe coconuts to keep this mind and body well.â
He knows every corner of the village and its people. He takes stock of its workers, residents, visitors, tourists, and strangers. This is his trade. He knows the newspaper writer Griffith is away teaching in America. A young girl, Ella, is staying in his house, taking care of it in his absence.
He scouts for new faces and opportunities. Tourists will give him a few dollars and offer drinks in bars. Surfers and weekenders buy coconuts. Residents have houses, gardens, and cars to repair. Jobs are scarce and the pay is poor. It could take months to raise the $700 he needs.
âSeven hundred still to pay. Just two weeks âtil judgment day, seven hundred months away.
âRass man, should never have happened, Ace donât have no truck with the law. Live outside it. Not me they ought to worry with. There are bad people, lazy people, and crazy people, man. I donât do no harm. Man got to live, fetch a pile of coconuts, sell some bananas, do a favour for a man, borrow some food. Ainât no harm in that. Ainât me they should worry âbout. Sure, I took a little dope, had a little snort of coke.
âTrouble, man. Coke brings trouble with the law! But I ainât no pusher, me. Never done no truck with dope, just a snort, a swig, a smoke, just for me and friends, I know. Possessionâs what they say, when they take my coke away and give so little time to pay.â
He is tuned to the sound of movement, the music of motion. Flip, flap, slide, slap. His oversized shirt flaps in the wind in time to the rhythm of his feet on the street. His breath is steady, heart beating like a bass. A harmony.
âFlip, flap, slide, and slap. Got a monkey on my back. Seven hundred fine for crack. I am a symphony. Man in motion, power walking down my hill. Got to find the money, man. Flip, flap, slide, and slap. Moving forward, never back. Ainât no rhyme in the jailhouse block. No such thing as jailhouse rock. Got to keep the music live. Ainât going to no jailhouse dive.â
We start our visit to Barbados with the tale of Ace, the first rogue in the story, and then go on to visit multiple characters and places in this memoir cum travelogue. An extremely whimsical style of writing coupled with the author's obvious love for the island and its people makes for a rather charming, almost old-fashioned portrayal of this Caribbean island and its inhabitants.
I have to start out with some effusive praise of the writing. I've read several boring slice-of-life vignettes and travelogues, but this piece of writing was anything but. I can't quite place the style, but I was able to get a hint of Roald Dahl's writing in Boy and the first few chapters of Going Solo in the rhetorical flourishes applied to the characters; and a bit of Ruskin Bond's flow in the poems and rhythms applied left, right and centre. Which is not to imply a lack of originality. Each character jumps off the page, their images as vivid as the pictures painted by Woolly Hewitt or Darla Trotman. Even though the author does not explicitly describe their physical appearances, one can get a good sense of each one nonetheless. Even the descriptions of places seem to have their own metre, the writing swaying in your head as it gently colours in an increasingly clear outline. The author complements these descriptions with some poetry here and there. I amused myself for a bit by reading the poems out loud, as I believe many others reading this book might do as well.
At the end, though, one puts this book down with a smile on one's face and a gasp upon the realisation that what one thought was five minutes was actually closer to an hour and a half. Reading this book is no effort: it is best described as a joy. It is uplifting, fun to read, and extremely engrossing. A must read for sure!