Only God Can Make a Tree (2024)

What merit Only God Can Make a Tree has as a book probably lies in its vivid depiction of plantation life in the small Caribbean island nation of St Kitts and Nevis in the first half of the twentieth century. But Bertram Roach's attempt to cram a sweeping, multi-generational family drama into a little over one hundred pages is simply not successful. He hurls a series of melodramatic events—abortion! alcoholism! murder! car crashes! descents into madness! more!—in quick succession at flat, unconvincing characters in such clunky, tell-don't-show prose that the whole novel soon teeters on the verge of camp. The lack of any emotional affect to the book, however, prevents it from even working on that level, and this somehow manages to be both over the top and dull. Boo.

1.5 stars, rounded up to 2 on the basis of its historical interest. (I'm sure someone working on race and gender in the 20th-century Caribbean would have something to work with here, because between the Tragic Mulatto characters and Roach's female characters, there's a lot to make a person say "yikes" here.)

Siguiendo con el desafío #ReadingTheWorld, que propone leer un libro por cada país del mundo, llegué a este título oriundo de San Cristóbal y Nieves. No es fácil encontrar autores sancristobaleños y, menos aún, historias que sucedan en la sociedad de este país insular ubicado en el Caribe, así que “Only God Can Make a Tree” me pareció una buena idea.

Lamentablemente, la historia como tal no es interesante en lo absoluto. Por ahí tiene algunos detalles que podrían resultar llamativos, pero son mínimos y no tienen continuidad en el relato. Además, siento que el autor es superficial en todo momento, no llega a profundizar en los personajes, en las situaciones ni en ninguno de los elementos de su narrativa. En menos de 150 páginas, nos cuenta la historia de vida de un padre y de su hijo, pero muchos momentos clave suceden muy rápido y muchos de los secundarios que podrían trascender pasan sin pena y sin gloria (y ni hablar de los protagonistas…).

Sí resalto el hecho de tener una idea más clara de la idiosincrasia de la sociedad sancristobaleña en relación a los negros y a la esclavitud. Es un tema recurrente en la historia que, al igual que todos los demás ítems, tampoco tiene mayor desarrollo, pero que, a través de la repetición, le queda bastante claro al lector o lectora. Por otro lado, considerando que este es el segundo libro caribeño que leo (el primero fue Un pequeño lugar de la antiguana Jamaica Kincaid), me queda mucho más clara los fuertes vínculos sociales y económicos que existen entre las naciones de las Antillas.

Como un texto informativo para ampliar conocimientos sobre San Cristóbal y Nieves, el libro funciona, pero como texto literario deja bastante que desear. Una lástima.

This is a very simply written book. Its appeal is that it is a window on life in St Kitts and Nevis in the early twentieth century by a Nevisian author.

Read Around the World: St. Kitts and Nevis

Although parts of this slim volume were wonderful, the writing was choppy and the story-telling was predictable. I loved the glimpse into life on the islands of St Kitts and Nevis at the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century. I loved the descriptions of the places, and the lengthy passages on the workings of the sugar cane farms. In some of these moments I felt the book was one that would eventually warrant 4 stars. However, the first half had all of the fun moments and then it felt like the author was forcing it. It felt like he decided that certain people had to fall so karma would get them for their previous failings, and that others had to die so that it would manipulate the characters left behind, and so he put it on the paper with very little thought as to how it read. The first half of the book took place over a fairly short period of time and it allowed us to hear the conversations that the characters had with one another. It was in this half of the book that I learned about how a sugar was harvested, and it was both fascinating and entertaining. Then the second half of the book came and huge leaps in time were made which left me feeling as though I missed all the good parts of the story and the author was just giving me the facts. I felt nothing for any of the characters. Some of them died and I didn't care! I wish that the author had made this a short story instead.

This is mostly the story of Adrian - the son of a black mother from the Caribbean and a white, Irish father. Though he works on the land as a highered hand, he longs for better social status. He falls in love with a girl named Julia. He feels that she is the love of his life, but she will not improve his social standing. The other woman in his life is Alice - the daughter of his boss. She is beautiful, and wealthy, and in love with Adrian. But Adrian knows it would ruin him to be with her - he would never work again. So they keep their relationship a secret.

Adrian's decisions with these two women, and their families, change the course of all of their lives forever. The harsh realities of Adrian's background get in the way of him living the life he desires.

This book wasn't great. It was not well written, and so it didn't hold my attention. I found myself skimming certain paragraphs because it read more like a manual than a story. It also jumped all over the place - too many small side stories that didn't really need to be introduced in such a short book. Too many tangents.

I read this book as part of my quest to read a book written by an author from each of the 196 countries of the world. The author of this book was born and raised on the island of Nevis.

I believe this is the only book written by Roach. Though many readers have given it a low rating, I feel it is an informative and enjoyable book. Many of the characters are not developed and too many coincidences occur for them to be believable. The author does help the reader to understand the atmosphere of race relations on the islands.

The book mirrors Roach's life very closely. Roach's father was a manager at the Lavington Estates in St. Kitts. Roach went to school on the island and lived with the laborers and others in the small villages. In the book, a young man of mixed race becomes a manager of a large cane plantation. His light skin grants him some of the privileges of white men, but his high ambition of becoming a rich plantation owner is doubtful.

Bertram shows that although slavery has been outlawed, the same oppressed men and women work as laborers for minimal payment. Blacks have not increased their standing in the communities.

"The whites are the masters, the blacks are the slaves and even now, many year after emancipation, they are still slaves with a different name: labourers. Everyone in any position of real authority if white: all the plantation owners, the judges, magistrates, police inspectors, ministers. The white plantation owners own almost all the land."

From Bertram Roach's novel "Only God Can Make a Tree", set on Lavington Sugar Cane Estate on Saint Kitts Island.

Note: I was taking the ferry from Basseterre (St. Kitts) to Charlestwon (Nevis) on July 6, 2023, and a couple sitting across from me in the waiting room noticed that I was reading this book and commented on it. The woman told me that the author - Bertram Roach - was still alive and was 100 years ago and living quietly on Nevis island.

Only God Can Make a Tree ** Read in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Charlestown, Nevis - West Indies, Caribbean (July 2023)

Reading the world in books: Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Not very well written. Easy reading.

Starts slowly, but I was pulled along and became quite engaged in the story. It was full of old time twists and turns, coincidence, etc, but so is life! A window into Caribbean life.

Reading The World #110: St Kitts and Nevis

#readtheworld Saint Kitts & Nevis

What fun it was to get to read a novel written by a native of Saint Kitts and Nevis! It's a short book of 134 pages focused on the story of one man's life. The reader gets introduced to post-slavery plantation life and some of the local customs.

Only God Can Make a Tree is a short book at less than 150 pages, and it is a quick read both because of its length and because of the writing style. It’s written very simply and is very much a book where it tells you what’s happening and what characters are feeling rather than showing you through metaphors or flowery language. This makes it seem like it’s not a very well-written book as you can’t easily connect with the characters and the plot is just laid out in front of you. It took a while to get used to how it was written, but its blunt, on the nose approach to this story did make it easy to read and sometimes engaging.

For such a short book it covers a lot of time and different characters lives. Adrian is the main character but as the choices he makes have knock on effects onto the people around him, you get snippets from other characters points of view as they struggle to deal with the fallout of his actions. The latter half of the book spans more time as Adrian fathers’ children and they grow up and have to live with Adrian being their father and what that can mean for them.

Adrian is a character that’s equal parts infuriating and sympathetic. While his actions are his own, and they are often reckless and hurt women who do love him, he is boxed in by the hierarchical society and has limited options if he desires to climb the social ladder. Adrian has high aspirations in a society that won’t really allow him to have those aspirations. He is a man that’s almost trapped between two societies because of his parentage, he can pass for white a lot of the time, but at the same time many white people will never see him as anything but black and will treat him accordingly. There’s also how Adrian appears to be destined to make similar mistakes to his own father, and all the rum that’s available is not good for any of the characters.

The sections about life in Saint Kitts and Nevis in the twentieth century were interesting. White, often English, people still owned the cotton and sugar cane plantations but now they pay people to work the land, albeit very cheaply. The former slaves are now labourers. As not a lot of time has passed since the abolition of slavery, there’s still some tension as the white plantation owners believe that the black people are still savages deep down. Often the glimpses of Caribbean society and how it works were more interesting than Adrian’s life. Though that being said, how Caribbean society works had a direct effect on Adrian and how is life panned out so the intersection between the two was also interesting.

I read Only God Can Make a Tree in less than two hours but I’m not sure how long this story will stick with me. It’s a concise family saga that gives a unique insight into post-slavery Caribbean and how one man’s aspirations can have long-lasting and unexpected effects. 2/5.

It was difficult to find a novel that takes place in St Kitts and Nevis, tags is also written by a Nevisian. This short book fit the bill for an authentic look at plantation life post-slavery, and not from a British perspective, in the early 20th century up through WWII. The perfect novel to read while spending time on Pinney's Beach, Nevis.