Molly and the Muslim Stick (Macmillan Caribbean Writers)

Oxford: Macmillan Caribbean, May 2008. Trade Paperback. First Edition / full number line. As New. Pristine inside and out. Not from a library. No remainder mark. iv + 179 pages.

Most of Molly and the Muslim Stick is set in England, and spans the first half of the twentieth century and a little beyond. The story focuses on Molly Harris (Anglo-Brit), a victim of sexual abuse who tries to heal herself of the physical and mental effects of her abuse. When Molly is finally settled into a teaching career in a working class town, and has found a way to bring order to her very disordered life, an illegal immigrant from Guiana shows up on her doorstep. She takes him in, gives him a bath, powders him, clothes him in a dress, sticks a pipe in his mouth, places him on a sofa, and names him Om. He remains in her home, never developing social skills to function outside of it--his most coherent way of communicating with Molly is by emitting scents (of fear, of anger, etc.)--as part servant, part exotic exhibit for her friends and neighbors. Eventually, in the thick of the anti-communist, racist, xenophobic fervor of the 1950s, the man is deported. Molly discovers she can't live without him (they aren't romantically involved, but she feels a strong maternal-like attachment to him) and goes to Guiana in search of him. Once the novel's setting shifts to Guiana, we get a view of Amerindian lifestyle from the outsider. Molly is happy and relaxed in the serenity of the place where she can slow down and catch up with her life, and where she is treated like a special guest, fed and housed by the "natives." But eventually, she tires of it all and returns to England. But before she leaves, Molly discovers that Om's presence at her door in England may have been a "dream happening" gone wrong, and his subsequent return home to Guiana was a result of him dreaming his way back home.