Island Man

A grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother’s ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes. Amid the devastation, the fragile peace between father and son is tested as long-buried family secrets at the heart of Hector’s identity are unearthed. Hector faces down his failed marriage, shipwrecked career, and his own failures as a father, while Winston, after three decades of striving as an immigrant in Boston, seeks to reclaim the losses from a painful childhood and the bloody betrayal by his one true love. In Island Man, the ruins of past and present are reconciled and shattered generational bonds are restored.

“In Island Man, Joanne Skerrett has written an impressive novel that examines the passionate loyalties and difficult choices inspired by the demands of community, family, and love against the dramatic backdrop of the repression of Dominica's Rastafarian community and the hero's migration to America. This satisfying novel takes the reader into the heart of the immigrant experience, what is found, what is left behind, what is lost, and, finally, what is claimed. You will find yourself dreaming, aching, and yearning with a cast of characters whose lives span generations and will remain with you long after the last page.”—Marita Golden, American novelist, nonfiction writer, professor, and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation“When I read the opening paragraph of Joanne Skerrett’s fast-paced novel, Island Man, I knew my plans for the day had to be changed.  The story starts with a Category 5 hurricane and what follows is hurricane-strength winds that fan a blazing and expertly constructed plot. Skerrett’s well-developed characters are alive; you can hear them breathe between the lines. It feels as if I know them. One of the highest tributes readers can pay to a book and its author is to admit that the story is so gripping, the prose so unrelenting and masterful that they could not put it down. Island Man is that kind of book. I could not wait to find out what happened after each chapter ended. The story of loss and redemption, twists and surprises, is powerful and necessary. It is timely, even as it spans decades; Dominica and Boston. Skerrett’s Island Man is glorious."—Katia D. Ulysse, author of Drifting and Mouths Don’t Speak

Joanne Skerrett is the author of several novels, including Abraham’s Treasure, a finalist for the CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Literature in 2011. She has worked as an editor for the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Raleigh News & Observer and is a candidate for the MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her recent work has appeared in Spellbinder literary magazine, where she won the prize for fiction in 2021, and in Rebel Women Lit. She lives in Washington, DC.