In the discovery of a fossilized tree stump deep off the coast of Bermuda, Angela Barry finds a potent metaphor of long-term climate change against which to measure the alarms, resentments and hopes of future possibilities expressed by her characters as they respond to Bermuda' s emergence from colonial status. Modernity brings challenges to the old racial, cultural and religious hierarchies that have dominated the island. Angela Barry weaves a rich and absorbing multi-voiced narrative in which different perspectives - insider / outsider, youth / age, Black / white - are each given sympathetic space and a convincing sense of growth through the span of the novel.
