If I Survive You

This story also adopts the use of second person, addressing the reader as “you.” In it, the author code-switches, shifting from a vernacular more familiar to native English speakers who grew up in the United States to a Jamaican vernacular. The story takes the point of view of Trelawny’s father, Topper, tracing his life to the present day.

The narrator, from Topper’s perspective, ushers the reader through the life a young man born to uptown Kingston parents. He writes about dating three different women: Reyha, Sanya, and Cherie. The narrator tells his father, who owns a construction business, that he wants to go to a foreign art school to study fashion. His father strongly objects, so he instead goes to work on his father’s construction site. The young man dislikes the work, but his father is dismissive: “since when man suppose to like job” (48). Of the three women, the narrator loves Sanya and hopes to marry her. With the money saved from his job, he is able to buy a home in Mandeville, and he writes about marriage to Sanya, who accepts. They name their first son

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