Best Books of 2019: Washington Post • O, The Oprah Magazine • Time • NPR • People • BuzzfeedA TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club SelectionWinner • Lambda Literary Award [Lesbian Fiction]A Washington Post Lily Lit Club SelectionLonglisted • PEN/Faulkner Award for FictionAmerican Library Association • A Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book (Stonewall Book Awards)Finalist • Aspen Words … Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book (Stonewall Book Awards)
Finalist • Aspen Words Literary Prize
Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize
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New York Times Book Review • Editors’ Choice Selection
Kirkus Reviews • Most Memorable Fictional Families of the Year
Longlisted • The Morning News Tournament of Books
A Rumpus Book Club Selection
A beautifully layered portrait of motherhood, immigration, and the sacrifices we make in the name of love from award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn.
Heralded for writing “deeply memorable . . . women” (Jennifer Senior, New York Times), Nicole Dennis-Benn introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine for our times: the eponymous Patsy, who leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica to follow Cicely, her oldest friend, to New York. Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession and peppered with lilting patois, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to love whomever she chooses, bravely putting herself first. But to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a nanny, while back in Jamaica her daughter, Tru, ironically struggles to understand why she was left behind. Greeted with international critical acclaim from readers who, at last, saw themselves represented in Patsy, this astonishing novel “fills a literary void with compassion, complexity and tenderness” (Joshunda Sanders, Time), offering up a vital portrait of the chasms between selfhood and motherhood, the American dream and reality.more
Nicole Dennis-Benn is an exquisite writer who paints scenes with words so vivid you might as well be walking through it as a character, not a reader. In Patsy, she addresses motherhood, sexuality, racism, and colorism; turning her prodigious talents to the timely story of an undocumented immigrant straddling two worlds while learning that love isn’t a choice, but the beat in one’s blood.
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn is even better than her debut Here Comes the Sun… It’s a heartbreaker but a heart mender, too… A satisfying read with no easy answers, but so much compassion.
One of my favourite novels of 2017 was easily Nicole Dennis-Benn’s first novel, Here Comes the Sun, and when her second, Patsy, was announced, I almost lost my mind. The richness of Dennis-Benn’s writing is taken to another level in Patsy, the story of a Jamaican woman working towards her own version of the American dream… Dennis-Benn explores in such a textured, taut way what in love is gained, and what, or who, is left behind… Bliss.
Often authors say it’s tough to top themselves with their sophomore novels, but Nicole Dennis-Benn did it brilliantly with Patsy. Dennis-Benn helps us see America through the eyes of a Jamaican immigrant seeking love and a better life in New York. A travel visa holds Patsy’s dreams; however, all that glitters from the vantage point of a Caribbean island nation loses some of its luster when this Jamaican single mother joins the ranks of the working poor in America.
At the center of this story is an unflinching look at a mother who abandons her daughter to chase the American dream. It’s the story of a mother and daughter claiming freedom in their sexuality and gender identity. It’s the story of us as women and the hard choices we may make without apology.
I adore gorgeous prose and there’s plenty to admire in Patsy. You will re-read passages of this novel just to feel their weight on your tongue. I highly recommend this novel that reeks of humanity and courage.
A stunningly powerful inter-generational novel about the price ― the ransom really ― women must pay to choose themselves, their lives, their value, their humanity. Frank, funny, salty, heartbreaking, full of love, Dennis-Benn is a map-maker to those places in the heart held so closely, the holder may not know even they’re there.
Beautiful, shattering, and deeply affecting. Patsy’s story ultimately makes for a novel that is destined to endure.
Although I’ve never begrudged illegal immigrants entering this country, this book opened my eyes to exactly how hard it is for them to survive after they get here. It is so sad that they come with big dreams that shatter almost immediately. They have almost no chance of a descent job and are subjected to terrible conditions. I ordered this book because my name happens to be Patsy and parts of it were very hard to read, not just the patios but also the suffering.
Get this book. Nicole Dennis-Benn is a treasure.
One of the books I’m looking forward to reading this summer is Nicole Dennis-Benn’s Patsy… I admire how Dennis-Benn’s work grapples with multiple sources of displacement, mining the drama that emerges from the fundamental tension between social expectations, the requirements of survival and the need to respect and love our true selves.
A novel that splits at the seams with yearning, elegantly written and deeply felt. Dennis-Benn leads the reader through Patsy’s life with empathy and grace.
An aching meditation on motherhood, sacrifice, and what it means to look truth in the face in order to fully become oneself. A beautiful book, as heartbreaking as it is restorative.
The story of a mother who eaves her child to follow her own heart is not an easy one to swallow. But the characters in this book make it believable and even necessary for a Jamaican woman who leaves her homeland to find herself.