No Telephone to Heaven

No Telephone to Heaven, the sequel to Abeng, is the second novel published by Jamaican-American author Michelle Cliff. The novel continues the story of Clare Savage, Cliff’s semi-autobiographical character from Abeng, through a set of flashbacks that recount Clare’s adolescence and young adulthood as she moves from Jamaica to the United States, then to England and finally back to Jamaica. First published in 1987, the book has received much attention for its articulation of the paradoxes of history and identity after and counter to colonization. The novel begins with a small group... of guerilla soldiers, a much older Clare Savage among them, traveling through Jamaica’s remote cockpit country. The soldiers have set up on piece of land once owned by Clare’s grandmother Miss Mattie, where they train and grow food as well as ganja. The second chapter tells the story of Paul H. who is initially at a party with Harry/Harriet—a transsexual half-brother/half-sister to one of Paul’s friends. Paul returns home after a late night to find a horrific scene: his family and all of their servants have been murdered with a machete.
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