Title: The White Woman on the Green Bicycle: A Novel
Author: Monique Roffey
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2011
448 pages
A novel that starts off looking small--focusing on conflicts in a marriage--and gradually reveals its large scope--seeing the rifts in the marriage as a way of seeing conflicts and tension within Trinidad. There is some nice parallelism, many amusing. There is also some lovely description. What is best rendered, though, is the dialogue and behavior of people in a relationship who are punishing each other for reasons they can't articulate well.
4.5 stars, but I rounded down rather than up because at the last minute (literally--on the next to last page)--the protagonist spends a paragraph saying what we already know, in clunky exposition. If this had been mid-book it wouldn't have mattered, but it spoiled the momentum of the ending.
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