Be I Whole

In a gritty debut, Brown traces the rich oral traditions and strong family ties found in rural West Indian communities. The story isn't set on a sun-drenched tropical island, however, but in Detroit and rural Ohio, giving it an unexpectedly gray, dreary tone. Narrating is an elderly, pipe-smoking West Indian woman, who tells of a marriage between Papa Job, a Bahamian bar owner in Detroit, and Sizway, a young herbal doctor and member of the arcane Ki tribe, an extended West Indian family who in fablelike imagery live a superstitious and agrarian life in the Ohio countryside. Most of the narrative centers on how the extremely melancholic Papa Job leaves his adopted and frustrating American lifestyle to settle in with the poor, hardworking, ritualistic and fiercely loyal Ki. Throughout, wonderful West Indian proverbs boost the prose, as when one Ki woman warns Sizway against marrying Papa Job by saying, ``Something you will eat forever you don't need to eat in a hurry.'' Ultimately, the novel lacks sufficient drama to be fully gripping, but Brown narrates it crisply, demonstrating that she has the gifts of a fine storyteller. (Nov.)