in order to unite his kingdom. The novel ends before this so that the
custody battle, as well as whether or not Sonny ever finds his parents,
are left open to reader speculation. Everything points, however, to a
satisfactory ending.
 As usual, Paule Marshall has brought a set of exceptionally realistic
characters together in an intriguing plot. Her greatest accomplishment
is making a sympathetic figure out of Hattie, a drug addict, bordello
employee who has kept Sonny from his rightful family and living in the
worst possible conditions. She does this by deftly alternating Sonny's
innocent point of view with Hattie's self-rationalizing one, and then ending
with Edgar's reproval, which slowly reveals the real story. This produces
a fugue-like repetition-yet-alteration on the original theme that recreates
the jazz improvisation, on which the novel is based. The improvisation
is intensified toward the end when Hattie alternates between the public
and private retelling of the Sonny-Rett/Cherisse/Hattie story.
 One point that disturbed me was the success of the financial element
to lure Sonny back to his family. But then, when one considers that he is
the Fisher King, all the wealth of the family is, of course, only his due.
Another problem I had with the novel was Paule Marshall's use of a Western
myth as the framework for an Afro-American story. That is, until I shared
my reservations with Dr. Dannabang Kuwabong, Professor in the English
Department at the University of Puerto Rico. He simply asked: "And how
do you know that the Fisher King myth didn't originate in Africa?" On
that happy note, I end by highly recommending the novel to everyone.

 Nereida Prado Rodriguez,
 University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras


Meryvn C. Alleyne.
The Construction and Representation of Race
and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World.
Trinidad and Tobago: UWI Press, 2002.
his book examines racial and ethnic categories in the Caribbean,
 focusing primarily on the islands of Puerto Rico, Martinique,
 and Jamaica. Unique because of the variety of perspectives it
encompasses, it relates how social scientists and other scholars per-
ceive group membership, but also describes self-perception, the
insider's point of view concerning how (s)he defines herself. Addi-