Carnival

The Commonwealth Prize-winning author of Divina Trace has boldly recast Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises as a harrowing tale set in the West Indies (Booklist, starred review). Robert Antoni has established himself as one of the most innovative voices to emerge from the Caribbean and the Americas. His novel Carnival-easily his most engrossing, direct work to date-takes readers on a journey from contemporary New York City to the glitter of Trinidadian Carnival, and deep into the island's mountainous interior (Miami Herald). Aspiring novelist William Fletcher has come to New York to escape his affluent West Indian roots, but a chance meeting reunites him with two of his childhood companions: Laurence, who escaped poverty to become a scholar and poet, and Rachel, William's second cousin and first love. Making good on a liquor-soaked pledge to return to Trinidad for Carnival, they soon find themselves sliding into a fog of ganja, alcohol, and sensual rhythm. But their hedonistic homecoming has also brought them face to face with the demons of history, prejudice, and violence they've spent their lives trying to forget. Carnival is an appropriately heady and wild novel, in which the air is suffused with dope smoke, calypso drumming and menace (Independent on Sunday).