When the Bottom Falls Out

These finely crafted stories, set in the Caribbean and in Montreal, are about consequences of decisions made—sometimes for good reasons, sometimes out of hubris, sometimes on impulse, and sometimes because there is no choice. In “Robertson,” pushed by the community to take action against his wife and her lover, Robertson creates a situation he’s unprepared for. In “Glimpses into the Higginsons’ Closet,” through young Licia’s eyes we witness child exploitation rationalized with racial and religious ideology. In “The Headmaster’s Visit,” we watch a headmaster clumsily seeking forgiveness from a student he’d wronged several decades before, even as he vaunts and displays his cruelty. In the title story, Rob begins to face the aftermath of his and Henry’s arrest for loving each other. Praise for H Nigel Thomas’s Lives: Whole and Otherwise: In Thomas’ hands the interior monologue becomes a powerful tool for voicing character and experience. Time and again he demonstrates his skill at reproducing the speech patterns of characters with Caribbean origins to mesmerizing effect. . . . the stories contained in Lives Whole and Otherwise are all about shaking one frame or another. H. Nigel Thomas gives voice to a hard social reality that refuses the glib formulas of traditional narrative form. —The Rover