Description

Through the prism of memory, middle-aged Harry sets out to recapture his youthful years and the right but mostly wrong turnings he made.

Making Sense of Past Time is a coming-of-age story of an idealistic young man's attempt to escape his provincial hometown in pursuit of a life of enrichment.

Just age twenty, Harry could not know that leaving his country to enter another would place him in a state of total uprootedness and that success may not come his way. He hoped to fulfil his ambition of obtaining a better life and self-realisation.

Harry chronicles his fears of not amounting to much if he remained in Georgetown, Guyana, and struggles with his father. He was overjoyed to leave his provincial country for "greener pastures" in the big-city energy of London.

However, surprises were in store for him and challenging his character. He had difficulties finding employment, housing and happiness in the environment of racial discrimination in Great Britain during the early 1960s.

Life in London wasn't everything he'd hoped it would be. "Living on the dole" from the Employment Exchange to "beating the tube" and learning to shoplift with a rough group of friends.

His idealistic pursuit of an authentic life runs into trouble and becomes contradictory, compelling him to compromise.

This ultimately saga is full of humour, youthful passion, and dreams and allows the reader to glimpse at the British class system and the social life of immigrant London. Harry Holmes's story involves introspection, self-flagellation, irony, determination, and perseverance.

Follow Harry as he makes another attempt by quitting London for Stockholm and meeting Nordic people whose way of life is a mixture of reservedness and hospitality. He faces challenging times again––most of all, a new language.

BOOK REVIEW — Reviewed by Ruffina Oserio for Readers' Favorite

Lawrence G. Taylor crafts a narrative that is deceptively simple in plot structure but one with a sophisticated protagonist and themes that capture the reality of what it feels like to experience racism. "In London, I'd learnt what it was like to be black and a second-class citizen. A couple of practices, customs appeared questionable during my search for work and rented lodgings." The narrative is replete with social and cultural commentaries that give readers powerful insights into social constructs and race relationships. The underlying conflict is personal and mostly internal, a young man's struggle to redefine himself in a society that wants him to be someone he is not. The conflict is introduced from the very opening of the novel. Readers meet a young man who left his country in frustration to try his luck in another. Making Sense of Past Time: A Novel is told in a strong first person narrative voice that forces the reader to see the world from the viewpoint of the protagonist. It is confident, the prose is great, and the elements of the setting are skilfully written into the story. Making Sense of Past Time is both entertaining and inspiring.