cover image Isles of Eden: Life in the Southern Family Islands of the Bahamas

Isles of Eden: Life in the Southern Family Islands of the Bahamas

Harvey Lloyd. Benjamin Company, $65 (90pp) ISBN 978-0-9629806-0-2

Stretching from 90 miles southeast of Nassau almost all the way to Haiti, the chain of islands whose quiet lifestyle is celebrated here includes San Salvador, where Columbus first set foot in the New World. Although photographer Lloyd ( Our Voices, Our Land ) offers a few standard shots of fiery sunsets, brilliantly blue waters and other natural splendors, he concentrates on the Bahamas' people. Some 60 large-format pictures of farmers, fishermen, ministers and schoolchildren are paired with the subjects' comments on their islands' history, their personal recollections (one woman remembers getting up at 3 a.m. on Sundays to walk to church) and their feelings about change as young people move to urban areas. Although the interviews are hardly revelatory, they're preferable to Lloyd's patronizing comments about the ``warm-hearted and loving'' natives. Appropriately, the Bahamas' minister of tourism provided a foreword; with its feel-good photos and mushy, uncritical text, this reads like a travel brochure. ( Apr. )