Steeped in tragedy, Writer searches for happy ending CT Chronicle, Willimantic, June 12, 2003 by Terese Karmel I'm not normally inclined to respond to a phone request to write about someone's book. The typical procedure is to find out a little about the author (especially if there are any area connections), then to get a review copy from the author or publisher to decide if it would be of interest to the readers. In the case of the book that is the focus of this column, 'The Cleansing,' by Cheryl Gittens-Jones, none of the normal procedures struck me as worth pursuing. Something in Gittens-Jones' tone over the phone, something in the urgency and emotion of that accented voice, however, struck a chord, and within five days I was sitting in her comfortable Manchester apartment, her 3-year-old daughter Amaranthia Sepia's toys scattered about, talking with Gittens-Jones and her husband, Keith Jones, a business analyst with the Hartford Insurance Co., about the book' and more importantly, her life and her mission. Her mission is in the form of 10-year-old twins, Nikit and Nikesha Taylor, who live in the small community of St. James on the West coast of Barbados with their paternal grandmother. The twins are the orphaned daughters of her brother, Hendy ('Doc' to those who knew him), a 33-year-old man who died in 1997 of AIDS, leaving his girls and a heartbroken family behind. (The children's mother had died several years earlier.) The book, in fact, is dedicated to Hendy's memory and 'of our childhood days together in the sun.' Right now, the twins are being cared for by Gittens-Jones' mother in Barbados, but her pension is small, and the threat of the girls being placed in an orphanage looms large. It's a threat that haunts Gittens-Jones, who promised her brother on his deathbed that she would make sure that those girls get to America, where she can adopt them and bring them up as her own. Gittens-Jones, who is 40, knows something about the struggles of getting to America and fulfilling goals herself. Born and raised in Barbados, she escaped poverty, racism and a household of domestic violence through her ambition and her writing. She dropped out of school at the age of 15, and, seeking a better life, in 1987 accepted a job as a nanny with a family in Canada. More interested in a college education, she eventually crossed the border to the U.S. and landed in New York, where she went through a series of low-paying menial jobs 'all covertly' because she was an illegal immigrant. Speaking with Cheryl Gittens-Jones, it was hard for me to imagine how she handled a secret life her outspoken, in your face attitude about herself, the tragedy of her brother and the world around her are such remarkable departures from one who was forced into a closet for much of her early adulthood. But her desire to be educated and to put her writing talents to use have driven her. In 1989 she earned her GED and as she puts it, this empowered her to move on. She eventually returned to Barbados, received a student visa, came back to America, and in the fall of 1995 was awarded a scholarship to attend Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, from which she graduated in 1999 with just about every academic and writing honor the college has to give out, including the prestigious James Baldwin playwrighting prize for 'Shaduhs Uh Voodoo,' a one-act work also dedicated to her brother's memory. During these years, she also converted to Buddhism, which she says has been a strong influence in her life. "I was very determined to be educated," she said. "But people looked down at me; it's all about class." 'The Cleansing' (available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the publisher's web site www.PublishAmerica.com) is a fictionalized personal narrative in which the main character, Unis Hope MonteClaire (unis for unity; mountain, on high; claire, clarity) goes through many of the same childhood ordeals as the author did growing up in the West Indies. The character has a brother with whom she is very close. Interwoven in the narrative are several poems which Unis creates, as well as glimpses of island life and culture. Much of the book is written with this intensity, as well as a strong reliance on natural imagery to reflect the emotional changes within the characters. After a section in which Unis' father abuses her mother, the narrator writes of how Unis and her younger brother "held on to each other trying to gain comfort from each other's little arms, but to no avail ... Strange noises came to live in Unis' head around this time. Whenever the child noticed a change in her father's voice, or in his attitude, the strange vibrations began. They came like waves, like the wind, and sometimes like pounding raid and thunder during a terrible hurricane ... (sounds) she came to recognize ... as warnings whenever violence was about to start." At a point when Unis loses her brother at school, Gittens-Jones writes of her frantic search for him: 'Unis raced around the almost deserted school grounds screaming her brother's name.' But the search fails. "Turning around, the wind blowing into her tear soaked eyes, the little girl began the journey home knowing trouble awaited her at the end of it." Although it is semi-autobiographical, Gittens-Jones was uncomfortable writing the novel in first person and so she did what most good writers do and created a character. What she is comfortable with is explaining the basis of the novel. "I wrote the book for a number of reasons," Gittens-Jones tells me. "To begin the healing process" was paramount, she said, referring to the death of her brother. She also feels the need to tell her stories to inspire others. She was fortunate; her lifelong desire to be a writer was possible because her husband's job allows her to stay home, take care of her daughter and write. She also hopes to bring attention to and to raise money to combat the widespread epidemic of AIDS in the Caribbean, a situation many of the countries there are reluctant to acknowledge because they fear a loss of tourism. "This story is about someone who believed, who suffered because of those beliefs, but was able to overcome and achieve the American dream by turning 'poison into medicine'," she says, referring to a Buddhist concept. Gittens-Jones was with her brother when he passed on. A day or so earlier she had brought him a bunch of roses and he told her that no one had ever done that for him before. When he died, "he had made peace with himself and us," she said. When she spoke with her nieces after he died, she told them that "every star you see, every raindrop that falls, every ray of sun ... every tree, flower ... he's part of them. He is the brightest star in the sky." She would like to talk to women in similar circumstances in which she found herself so that they can see that with desire, they, too, can fulfill their goals. If she can give some readings from the book and sales start to perk up, her own top priority will be achieved. "I have to do this," she says. "I have two little girls waiting for me."