Black Cake

by Charmaine Wilkerson

Benny and Byron’s mother, Eleanor, has left them a mysterious recording and instructions to eat her last black cake (carefully preserved in her freezer) together at the right time.  As the story unfolds, we also meet Covey and Bunny, young women growing up on an unnamed Caribbean island in the 1960s.  The interlocking narratives, told from many different perspectives, might seem confusing at first, but they soon fall into a rhythm that flows naturally and inexorably towards the book’s conclusion.  Black Cake has it all.  Gorgeous prose? Check.  Interesting characters? Byron (a scientist and surfer), Benny (an aspiring café owner and artist) and their mother Eleanor, to say nothing of the supporting cast, are not what I expected in the best possible way.  Diversity? Of every kind.  Wilkerson writes about Chinese immigration to the Caribbean, immigration from the Caribbean to the UK, all different kinds of families, the experience of being a bisexual Black California woman at a Northeastern college – I could go on and on.  Do you like romance? Historical fiction? Family drama? A mysterious murder? Interwoven narratives?  Beautiful descriptions of food?  Then you should read Black Cake!  It also walks the fine line between fairy tale and realism perfectly.

Likes: these are characters I’ve never met before but hope to see a lot more of on the page.  Every character had a complicated past and few (maybe Little Man is the exception) were exclusively good or bad.  I loved the way Wilkerson showed an abundance of experiences (queer, straight, Black, Chinese, immigrant, 2^nd-generation immigrant, orphaned, adopted, biological family, family of choice).  And I thought her writing on friendship, and how a person (Covey) can make fast friends so quickly with a platonic friend (Elly), almost like falling in love, was wonderful. Loyalty to and sacrifice for your friends is a huge theme.

Dislikes: nothing.  But please note that as the author herself acknowledges, this story walks the line between realistic fiction and fable, so if you only want gritty reality or perfect happiness in your books, this isn’t the book for you.  You also need to be patient and devote some time to this one – it’s not a fast read, but it’s so worth it.

FYI: This book includes murder, parental abandonment, forced adoption, domestic violence.  Characters experience racism, racist violence, sexism, rape, traumatic injury, and prejudice due to sexual identify.