PEOPLE AND PEPPERS: A Romance, botanically savvy man goes public

PEOPLE AND PEPPERS: A Romance
KELVIN CHRISTOPHER JAMES
Harvard Square Editions (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$27.50 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Gossipy, intimate, and provocative, and set in Trinidad and New York City, People and Peppers, A Romance gives a diverting peek into the nuances of a Caribbean island’s callaloo of inter-racial and multicultural social mores. James’s main characters are complex, motivated, and fun to know. Tall and handsome, the main protagonist, Vivion K Pinheiro, is the bastard of a half-Portuguese, half Afro-Haitian woman, and an attractive New Yorker with carrot-colored hair who danced beautifully.

Accomplished as well, Vivion has earned national prestige as a scholar and athlete. As a young man trying to realize dreams, he can be selfish yet thoughtful, deceptive yet generous—no real villain, just a callow fella getting over by pulling the tricky strings of privilege and personal charm.

An important factor in his dream actualization is Vivion’s doting, wealthy mother to whom he confessed an ambition to construct an ecologically sensitive, self-sufficient house on countryside property she bought for him. He imagines the finished structure to be surrounded by a pepper farm that grows Moruga Red Scorpion peppers—the hottest on the planet.

A significant stubbing-stone to his ambitions though, is a habit of dodging difficulties—when the goings get tough, Vivion’s gone. How he deals with this failing is only one serving of this fine novel. Of other satisfying portions is the influence of the women in his life. In earlier novels, James’s female characters have been admirable stalwarts and he doesn’t disappoint here. Andaluza, the mother, is an indulgent one. Nikki, the lover, is a strong other. This empathetic novel superbly speaks to women’s compassion and tolerances in the name of love. So let’s live with Vivion as he discovers and submits to the sublime effects of romantic love and father issues.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A novel with a lovely Trinidadian voice, This story of a feckless, flighty boy who's got a terrific idea...grow the hottest pepper available in an ecologically sustainable way...without any idea of what to do with the results.

All y'all already know I'm a fan of non-standard English voices...see my Celeste Mohamed reviews...and Caribbean ones in particular, so it's no surprise I enjoyed this read. Seeing still more of Trinidad's complex and varied society from a new, male viewpoint was also very interesting. Author James is not seeing the same way as Author Mohamed. Andaluza is not comparable to Jayanti, Salma, or Abby from the Mohamed stories; she's a different class, a different ethnicity, living in a similar but not shared world. As a wealthy woman of African descent, her bearing a son to a white man was shocking...and blights to some degree her lighter-skinned boy's prospects. Vivion, of course, is in a middle ground; his mother's unmarried status, but access to money makes this privileged son pretty much as one would expect him to be no matter where he hails from. His Mama will bail him out; his girl Nikki, an Indian Muslim, will stick by him; he's a bog standard spoiled boy.

When Vivion finally acts the part of a man and sets out to sell his super-peppers in New York, I got the darkest, most unnerved premonition of disaster...none of his women were going with him. All spoiled little boys feel invincible, like they can't be duped or swindled or misled. We all know where that leads...right into the hands of serious swindlers. It's not like he had not had this happen to him before....

As life at home in Trinidad keeps going in its course, Nikki and Andaluza form their own relationship that's not centered on Vivion. Their connection, formed around their shared affection for the spoiled Vivion, ripens into something more life-affirming as time goes by. It's a part of a story that takes its time to acquaint you with its world and people. This is not a one-sitting book.

Why I rate it four stars, not more, is this pacing issue. It's intentional, far as I can tell. There is no telltale sign, like a sudden infodump, to suggest the author simply lost control of the narrative. It still feels slower than the events that unfold warrant to me. I was very interested by Vivion's savvy decision to grow the hottest peppers around in a world where capsaicin is used in remedies a lot, and hottest peppers are quite prized in an affluent subculture simply for their own sake.

I was glad to have read this book. Its careful storytelling might not move swiftly but it does move well.