Review of Zalika Reid-Benta's “Frying Plantain”: How Do We Love?
Review of Zalika Reid-Benta's “Frying Plantain”: How Do We Love?
by Noreen Ocampo
In her stunning debut, Frying Plantain (House of Anansi Press, 2019), Zalika Reid-Benta depicts both the beauty and struggle of growing up between worlds of differing cultures. A collection of intricate yet accessible short stories, Frying Plantain offers Reid-Benta’s readers a cinematic series of twelve snapshots from the life of Kara Davis, a young Jamaican-Canadian girl from the Eglinton West neighborhood of Toronto, or “Little Jamaica.” Above all else, Frying Plantain is a coming-of-age story in which Reid-Benta carefully unfolds an abundance of themes, such as growth, connection, belonging and the lack thereof, that will undoubtedly hit home for readers of all backgrounds. However, what touched me the most deeply was Reid-Benta’s multi-faceted depiction of romantic and familial love and the parallels she draws between characters’ diverse experiences of love throughout the collection.
First loves have a natural place in coming-of-age stories, and Frying Plantain is no different. In the story “Brandon & Sheila,” sixteen-year-old Kara tells us about her first kiss: “Earlier that day, after school, Terrence Peters had shoved his tongue down my throat.” While perhaps enjoyable for Terrence, Kara’s first love seems to come later, at seventeen, with a boy she affectionately refers to as “the boyfriend” in the story “Lovely.” Although these two relationships unfurl in ways that encourage Kara to question and grow as she explores both her sexuality and the experience of sharing life with another person, Reid-Benta extends the significance of Kara’s romances far beyond the romantic realm as she examines the often complicated and caustic love shared by Kara and her mother, Eloise.
Although these two relationships unfurl in ways that encourage Kara to question and grow as she explores both her sexuality and the experience of sharing life with another person, Reid-Benta extends the significance of Kara’s romances far beyond the romantic realm as she examines the often complicated and caustic love shared by Kara and her mother, Eloise.
After reflecting on her first kisses with Terrence, Kara yearns to discuss love with her mother but struggles to close the distance between them:
“I wanted to know about desire: if having it and receiving it meant that your sense of self was gone; if there was anything romantic in melding with another person…I knew she had the answers. I knew she’d be able to reach in and sort me out even if I hated her for it.”
And even with “the boyfriend,” Kara can’t bring herself to reveal to her mother that she is in a relationship when Eloise asks Kara who’s calling on her cellphone:
“I focus now on a knot at the end of my hair. It’s my boyfriend. Maybe if I say it casually, like I expect her to be calm and not respond with homicidal rage. No, it won’t work. That nonchalance is too Canadian. Too much like the kids I go to school with. Too white.”
The complications of Kara and her mother’s relationship extend far beyond boy-related issues. In “Pig Head,” we learn of the struggles of Kara’s inbetweenness as a Jamaican-Canadian and Eloise’s experience of discrimination due to her own racial and cultural identity. Kara’s mother is called to school as a result of Kara circulating a story that Kara had killed a pig while on vacation in Jamaica. Ashamed, Eloise says, “Do you realize what you’ve done?…These people already treat me like I’m trash.” Later, in “Inspection,” we learn of how community actually complicates the mother-daughter relationship further. While both Kara and Eloise live in the same Jamaican-Canadian neighborhood, Reid-Benta suggests that Kara feels more aligned with her Canadian nationality, despite her mother’s strict adherence to Jamaican values—this establishes a formidable wall between the mother and daughter. Unaware of how severely the Jamaican community’s constant scrutiny and judgement affects Kara, her mother continues to emphasize the important role that others’ opinions play in how Kara should act: “How do you have no sense that you forgot to cream your skin? Now everyone is talking!”
While both Kara and Eloise live in the same Jamaican-Canadian neighborhood, Reid-Benta suggests that Kara feels more aligned with her Canadian nationality, despite her mother’s strict adherence to Jamaican values—this establishes a formidable wall between the mother and daughter.
This is not to say, however, that Kara’s relationship with her mother is loveless—Reid-Benta is just as sure to share the warmer parts of their relationship as well, where the love is more apparent. In “Celebration,” a third-person narrator interjects to paint a more joyful scene for the reader:
“They got drunk together for the first time—a bottle of sparkling wine the culprit—on Kara’s eighteenth birthday. Both women, short and tiny, were pretty much gone after the third glass, and on the fourth, Eloise swallowed hard and tapped her finger ruefully on the dining table…They raised their glasses for a fifth toast and after their rims clinked together Eloise started to giggle, the throaty cackle bouncing off all the walls of the living room, of the entire bachelor.”
Reid-Benta urges her readers to consider that love doesn’t always look like love, and it is often hard and calloused around the edges. But she also goes as far as to show us that sometimes “love” isn’t love at all. We encounter the strained, receding relationship between Kara’s grandparents in “Stand Off,” when Kara’s grandmother, Nana, solemnly reveals, “Kara, listen when I tell you say, I would rather die than talk to that man.” Kara then introduces her grandfather, a chronic philanderer who still lives with and relies on his wife yet “adjusted the furniture just enough for the living room to be exactly the same and completely different, just enough for it to look unchanged to anyone but Nana.”
Reid-Benta urges her readers to consider that love doesn’t always look like love, and it is often hard and calloused around the edges.
Even while showing some of the darker faces of love, Reid-Benta’s collection is far from hopeless or cynical. Rather, Reid-Benta fills us with appreciation for all of life’s struggles and beauty. As readers, we grow with Kara Davis; we learn and explore all forms of love alongside her.
The collection comes to a close with a final short story sharing the name of the book, “Frying Plantain,” which shows readers the culmination of love’s harshness and warmth as Kara prepares to leave Nana’s house for good. Despite heightened disagreements between Nana and Eloise, Nana sends Kara off with armfuls of leftovers, urging her to share them with her mother:
“‘Make sure yuh share that, nuh,’ says Nana.
I nod my head and tighten my grip on the No Frills bag, feeling the weight of the margarine containers and yogurt cups, remembering the weight of all of the leftovers she’d given me throughout the years. I smile slightly and turn toward the door. ‘Thank you for the food, Nana.’”
FRYING PLANTAIN
By Zalika Reid-Benta
272 pp. House of Anansi Press. $19.95.
Order here.
Noreen Ocampo is a Filipina American writer from metro-Atlanta. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Taco Bell Quarterly, Depth Cues, and Marías at Sampaguitas, among others. She was also a music fellow in the 2019 COUNTERCLOCK Arts Collective and enjoys experimenting with various artistic mediums. An undergraduate at Emory University, she majors in Film and Media Studies as well as English with a concentration in multi-ethnic literature.