Texaco: A Novel

This is the novel I wish I had written

This novel by Patrick Chamoiseau, translated from French and Creole by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov, has great breadth and emotional depth. The title, Texaco, tells you one thing you may already know: that the giant oil company looms over the island like a stinking giant, a merciless god. To break it down to its human essentials, it's the story of Martinique from the early 19th century until 1980, but is told mainly through two people: Esternome, a slave, and Marie-Sophie Laborieux, his daughter, a woman who throughout the novel makes sure that the author himself helps her tell her story.

Madame Marie-Sophie Laborieux, born in the early 1900s, late in life to former slaves, Esternome Laborieux and Idoménée Carmélite Lapidaille. Long after her parents’ deaths, she founded the quarter known as Texaco in 1950, outside the city of Fort-de-France, Martinique. Texaco, owned by Texas Oil Company, had subsidiaries in South America and in the Caribbean. On Martinique, Texaco housed large tankers on land near a mangrove swamp.Prior to Madame Laborieux deciding to build on Texaco’s property, like other poor Martinicians, she inhabited a hutch on the steep slopes, known as the morne, with dirt floors. As a young woman, she lived and worked for families, as a nanny or housekeeper in the city of Fort-de-France.Middle aged, childless, and alone, Madame Laborieux no longer wanted to live on the hills feeling the heat from the fiery sun. She found land near the sea with a gentle slope, temperate winds, and the scent of herbs. This was Texaco; she thought it magical.The watchman was not enchanted with her appearance on Texaco’s grounds, nor was the owner. Madame Laborieux faced numerous expulsions from the property, but continuously returned. More families arrived and dotted the region. Like Madame Laborieux, they erected crude dwellings on stilts, made of tin, crate wood and asbestos, planted vegetables and fruit trees. Eventually the homes, although still crude, were built with bricks and cement.In 1980, the Urban Planner, known as the “Christ,” arrived to Texaco. Without electricity and plumbing, the city judged the property unhealthy and had decided to raze the area.In her own words, Madame Laborieux, provides the Urban Planner her inspiring family history, beginning with her father, Esternome Laborieux, a carpenter by trade, born a slave and freed years prior to Martinique’s abolishment of slavery in 1848. Convincingly, she changed the minds of those in authority, obtaining proper housing and utilities.The author, Martinician, Patrick Chamoiseau, taped the late Madame Laborieux to write this book. Texaco, first written in French, won the 1992 French Prix Goncourt for Texaco.Chamoiseau captured Madame Laborieux’s history replete with her father’s voice; a fascinating man. She revealed the quality of transparency and purity in her father and mother, Idoménée. And in Madame Laborieux’s own story, you felt the sensitivity, suffering, sadness, passion, loss, lovers, longing, humor, and courage. Madame Laborieux was an indomitable spirit, a woman of profound substance. No doubt, she left an indelible impression on Martinicians.I thought the run-on sentences, although at times poetic and beautifully written were sometimes annoying. This might have been due to Madame Laborieux speaking on tape, in Creole and French. I felt emotionally spent after reading the account of Madame Laborieux’s history. I gave this book four stars.

An historical fiction, but the only one I know of which is from the perspective of a Caribbean persona. It speaks from every part of the history of the islands, from a perspective of the sea, to the beach, the streams, the old plantations, the deep valleys, the hidden mountain springs and the tops of ridges. It is not about dates or epcohs. It emphasizes and reflects the islanders in how they think, how they move. Every Caribbean person should read this book and those looking for a more actual look into one of the most historically dynamic regions of the world.

i bought this book as part of my mphil research and the way the story is intertwined with the country's history is quite intriguing.

If you were to compare Texaco to another novel you might feel inclined to call it One Hundred (Fifty) Years of Servitude or A House for Ms. Laborieux. And yes, it is every bit as epic, stunning, heartbreaking as those two great novels. Though in the biting tone and playfulness of the language it may be more apt to compare Chamoiseau to Rushdie, rather than Naipaul or García Márquez.As the shantytown of Texaco, outside of Martinique’s Fort-de-France, comes under threat of destruction, Marie-Sophie Laborieux narrates to a city planner the history of her beloved Quarter, and indeed the history the Creole culture of Martinique. Through the story of first her father’s, and then her own, struggle to conquer City (an ideal not necessarily tied to geography) she reveals the hidden, beautiful, necessary soul of Antillean Creole culture.Chamoiseau is one of the founders of the Créolité movement, which, as a counter to the earlier Negritude movement, seeks to embrace and celebrate Creole identity, and in Texaco he does just that with magnificent results.

This is the first book I've read by Chamoiseau, it reminded me of Gabriel Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and is really fine literature, magical & funny, a caribbean tale of the island of Martinique. It begins in the time of slavery on the sugar plantations and ends in more modern, corporate times. The book's ending is surprisingly uplifting and postive. It was hard to decide what rating to give this book - certainly it deserves the highest praise, however I have a feeling this book is much better read in its' original language. There are footnotes throughout explaining original Creole terms used. I would recommend this to anyone interested in Caribbean history or "universal" world literature.