jeffery wright

When Blossom, Flinty’s mother returns from Toronto to Spring Valley – a rural Jamaican village, after seven years, she finds her teenage son—who lives with his grandparents—facing the same dim future as the island, idling out his life on a dangerous roller-coaster of misadventures, on an island sizzling with the political tensions of the 1970s.
Ta-ta, Grandma opens with Flinty who lives with Hutch, his grandfather, and Catherine—his sprightly grandmother for his final year. He and his four restless friends pull every trick to avoid their school work. Flinty whose passion is cricket and reggae music, plans to leave for Canada,learn how to build earthquake jolting music sound systems, and return to put fear into god-fearing Christians with thunderous irreverent noise. And so even after a new tough male teacher challenge Flinty, nothing could prevent him and his trouble-prone teenage friends tumbling from one mischief to the next, until tragedy strikes and forever change their lives.
This fast pace, high-tensioned story; weaved through traditional folk-tales, juicy gossips, political tensions, and death defying cricket matches, is hilarious, mystic and insightful. Set in the picturesque and lush rolling hills of the Island’s Cockpit-Country region, Ta-ta, Grandma is superb for adults – young and old, wanting to skip the familiar tourist destinations and trek deep into the island’s interior, and experience Jamaica’s warm and caring culture.