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Jan 19, 2015WVMLStaffPicks rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
It is 1948 in an England still shaken by the war. Queenie Bligh takes in lodgers recently arrived from Jamaica. What else could she do when her husband had never returned from his RAF wartime posting to India? Gilbert Joseph was one of several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England after the war, and no longer in a blue uniform, he is confronted by prejudice and distrust. Levy's own parents emigrated to Britain just after the war and the book is based on their experience. The novel deservedly won the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction.