The Abundance of Water

This extract is from a novel-in-progress of the same name that uses historical fiction tropes to examine the legacies of transatlantic enslavement, especially the trans-generational trauma that exists within and between the descendents of both masters and the enslaved. The main protagonist is Louis Mackenzie, a wealthy young English man who travels to Jamaica in 1889 with the intention of claiming back a plantation that once belonged to his slave-owning family. On his arrival he meets the dying but tenacious ex-slave, Miss Queen Fall, who is the legal owner of the plantation and determined to ensure that it is inherited by her grand-daughter, Lily.This extract is concerned with the highly antagonistic relationship between Miss Fall and her 'mixed-breed' daughter, Primrose, whose father was also Miss Fall’s owner.The novel is the first of a proposed quintet that will follow a mixed-race family from 19th century Jamaica to contemporary Britain