Shades of Grey

Overview

As Stephenson comes closer to his girlfriend, Thea, he has to acknowledge that his past is a blank. He has never known his father, not lived with his mother, and cannot remember what his grandparents looked like. The Lights on the Hill, the first of two interdependent short novels in Shades of Grey, is a moving and inward portrait of a man, blown along by circumstance, trying to construct his own story. Another Place, Another Time, the second short novel, goes back to the character of Derek Charles, who appears as a returning islander in St. Omer’s first novel A Room on the Hill. Here, almost a decade earlier, St. Omer explores the circumstances in which the scholarship boy makes the decision to separate himself from his family and friends. This treasured Caribbean modern classic is brought back into print for the first time, with a rigorous introduction that adds context to the book.

Reviews

“One of the most genuinely daring and accomplished works of fiction . . . for a very long time.”  —Listener on the original 1968 publication

“[St. Omer is] destined . . . to take his place at the head of the column.”  —Guardian on the original 1968 publication

"[St. Omer's] delicacy, control and economy must surely place him in the first rank of 20th-century novelists."  —Kenneth Ramchand, author, The West Indian Novel and Its Background

Author Biography

Garth St. Omer is a former professor emeritus at the University of California–Santa Barbara. He is the author of J—, Black Bam and the Masqueraders; Nor Any Country; A Room on the Hill; and Syrop.