Sun-Sentinel.com, FL

August 11, 2008

Errol Flynn was missing character in novel set in Jamaica

Chauncey Mabe | Book Editor August 10, 2008

Errol Flynn invited himself into Margaret Cezair-Thompson’s life.

The author of a well-regarded first novel, The True History of
Paradise (1999), Cezair-Thompson was in the process of planning her
second, set in Port Antonio on the northeastern coast of Jamaica, when
she remembered the golden-age movie star had lived there during the
1940s.

"I had the setting and several of the characters in mind, especially
Ida, the mother, and May, the daughter," Cezair-Thompson says by phone
from Massachusetts, where she teaches at Wellesley College. "Then
Errol Flynn popped into my head."

Taking a closer look at Flynn’s life in Jamaica, she read books,
including his autobiography. She talked with people in Jamaica who had
known him. "He began to loom larger and larger until he seemed the
right father for May," she says.

The resulting novel, The Pirate’s Daughter ‘ Flynn played glamorous
pirates in Hollywood movies of the ’30s ‘ proved to be
Cezair-Thompson’s breakout book, reaching No. 3 on Amazon.com.uk after
being featured on Richard & Judy, a popular British afternoon talk
show. It didn’t sell quite so well in the United States, but it did
receive positive reviews in Publisher’s Weekly, Vogue, People magazine
and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, among others, when it first came
out last fall.

"I think the book has gone beyond people’s expectations," says
Cezair-Thompson, now touring in support of the softcover
edition. "It’s had an interesting journey. I can’t say enough about my
publisher, Unbridled Books. They’re a great group of people who have
great relationships with booksellers."

The story of May, the illegitimate child of the rakish (and sometimes
dastardly) Flynn and a teenage Jamaican beauty, The Pirate’s Daughter
is set against the historic changes that shook the island nation from
the late colonial times of the 1940s through independence in the 1960s
and into the social violence of the 1970s. May is abandoned first by
Flynn, who never acknowledges paternity, and then by her mother, who
leaves the island to seek fortune in New York.

Booksellers gave The Pirate’s Daughter a big boost, Cezair-Thompson
says, recommending it to their customers in this country. So did book
groups, who found the novel’s mix of literary and pop-fiction elements
appealing.

"I wanted to write something that people from all walks of life would
be able to enjoy," she says. "I never want to write a book that has to
be taught in the classroom to be understood."

Cezair-Thompson should know. At 51, she’s a well-established academic
who teaches those kinds of writers ‘ James Joyce, William Faulkner,
Virginia Woolf ‘ for a living.

Growing up in Jamaica, her ambitions lay with theater, not literature,
though she was an avid reader. At 19 she left for the United States,
where she studied drama until her senior year of college. Then she
came under the influence of Marjorie Housepian-Dobkin, an
Armenian-American novelist and historian who had best-selling books in
the 1950s.

"I took the class for fun," she says. "She thought I had something
original to say, and encouraged me. She was a great teacher in that
way teachers can sometimes be wonderful."

Turned down for graduate programs in both drama and creative writing,
Cezair-Thompson went instead for a master’s degree in literature ‘ a
choice she now says helped make her a better writer.

"I’m very happy I moved in an academic direction," she says. "It made
me a better reader, and a better writer. I have a confident sense of
what makes for good writing. You can start to see the flaws of even
great writers, and the challenges they faced. They’re not just figures
on pedestals. It’s very inspiring."

Readers often ask Cezair-Thompson if The Pirate’s Daughter is
autobiographical. She is of the same generation as May and lived
through the same Jamaican upheavals. But she says The True History of
Paradise is her autobiographical novel. In fact, she worked hard not
to repeat material from that book.

"In terms of the characters being completely made up, this book is not
at all autobiographical," Cezair-Thompson says. "But May wants to
write. She is growing up with all these literary interests she doesn’t
know what to do with. We didn’t have a lot of Caribbean literature on
the island. You grow up with the great English writers, and copy them
until you find your own voice. I drew on my own experience there."

Many readers, especially in book clubs, also demand to know why
Cezair-Thompson isn’t harder on Flynn, who, after all, was a notorious
libertine tried (and acquitted) for statutory rape after being accused
of seducing a 13-year-old girl. In some ways, Cezair-Thompson says,
she found it easier to sympathize with Flynn than with May.

"I was moved by the fact he really loved Jamaica," she says. "I felt
it was important to penetrate the tabloid bad-boy image, to show him
from [an] angle not seen before, to show an Errol Flynn who was tired,
fearful and troubled, and worried about aging. What came through my
research was a man not entirely happy with himself. I feel it’s up to
the reader to judge his actions."

Getting into the mind of a child proved a tougher challenge, says
Cezair-Thompson, the divorced single mother of a son.

"I have lots of close male friends," she says. "I wasn’t daunted by
writing in a male inner voice. But I can’t quite remember being a
little girl. And May is a boyish little girl. I studied the children
around me, especially my goddaughter, who was growing up as I wrote."

As a Jamaican-born novelist of rising stature, Cezair-Thompson says
she is always aware of her responsibility as a voice of her people.

"Really good fiction cannot be didactic, and I always try to stick to
the rules of good writing," she says. "I don’t want to offend
Jamaicans, but I also feel it’s important not to misrepresent the
country and its history. The violence of the ’70s, seeing Jamaicans
become fearful in their own country, is a hurtful memory for me. It’s
important to remember that and talk about it."

So far, she’s gotten little negative reaction.

"Jamaicans are a very vocal and down-to-earth people," Cezair-Thompson
says. "If I wrote things misrepresenting the country, they’d let me
know about it."

Chauncey Mabe can be reached at cmabe@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4710.

IF YOU GO
Margaret Cezair-Thompson will read and discuss her novel of midcentury
Jamaica, The Pirate’s Daughter, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Books &
Books, Bal Harbour Shops, 9700 Collins Ave. Free; 305-864-4241 or
booksandbooks.com.