A View From Mount Diablo

In View from Mount Diablo, Class and racial privilege and the resentments they provoke underscore both turmoil in wider society and the relationships at the heart of the narrative, between Adam Cole, a dreamy white boy driven by personal tragedy to crusading journalism, squint-eyed Nellie Simpson, once a servant, then a political enforcer, and stuttering Nathan, gardener and groom turned cocaine baron. Beyond this trio is a dazzling array of real and fictitious characters. The annotated edition by John Lennard, Professor of British and American Literature at UWI - Mona in Kingston, allows the full scope of the verse-novel to emerge for readers unfamiliar with Jamaican history since the 1930s.