The White Woman on the Green Bicycle- book review
It’s rare to come across novels written about Trinidad so you can imagine how I felt when I randomly picked up The White Woman on the Green Bicycle in the library and realized where it was set. Despite the book’s title, the novel is about a white European couple (the man English, the woman French and the “white woman” in the title) living in Trinidad for decades but still coming to grips with life there.
As you might know, Trinidad (full name: Trinidad and Tobago) is a small island nation in the Caribbean where I happen to be from. Though I lived there until I left to go to university in Canada, it was only in my adult years I learned to really appreciate the country. Reading this book made me go over how I feel about Trinidad and what I miss about it, from the natural beauty to the relaxed pace of life to the mix of people. In case you’re wondering how diverse a country of 1.3 million could be, I’ll say Trinidad has several ethnicities but the largest is 40 percent.
Anyways, the novel focuses on a white European couple which might seem unusual. Whites are a very tiny minority in Trinidad, and this couple aren’t originally from the country, but having lived in Trinidad for 50 years and raised their children wholly in the country, they have more than earned the right to be considered Trinidadians. For George, who came to Trinidad with his wife for a 3-year job posting and then decided to stay, he has no regrets. For Sabine, the “white woman” in the book’s title, things are more complex because she detests the country. At this point, you might think that writing a novel based on the views and experiences of white Europeans makes the book controversial or unrealistic but the author carries it off well. As a Trinidadian who herself was born to parents from Europe who settled in Trinidad, Monique Roffey wrote from personal experience – she has said in an interview that she based the couple in the book on her own parents.
What makes the book so intriguing was how it blended Trinidad’s historical, political and racial issues with the personal lives of the couple, as well as their grown-up children and their maid and her child. As such, it’s not all natural beauty and beaches and country clubs, but also crime, corruption and racial tensions that figure prominently. In the parts of the book. As whites from Europe, the couple face envy and distrust from local Trinidadian whites as well as scorn from Trinidadian blacks. And like almost every other Trinidadian, they encounter crime and poverty, though not themselves personally but of people close to them.
The novel is first told in the present, which is actually 2006 (the book came out in 2009), then goes back to 1956, when the couple came to Trinidad, then moves forward to 1963 and 1970, which were both important years in Trinidad’s history (Trinidad became independent in 1962 ) and for the couple. This is strange to me, but again, the author makes it work. Dr Eric Williams, Trinidad’s first prime minister and a noted historian and author in his own right, plays a big part in the book both as a black leader of a post-colonial Trinidad and as an object of obsession for Sabine.
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is a provocative and fascinating novel about Trinidad, both past and present, relatively speaking. For a brief moment, reading this allowed me to imagine myself back there.
