Typically for Evaristo, the characters in Mr.

Carmel is striving for self-actualization, but has to experience her marriage slowly going down the drain. In poetic language, Evaristo now shows Carmel as a beauty, a daydreamer with erotic desires. While Barry sees his wife as a naïve, narrow-minded complainer, the passages told from her perspective allow readers to get to know her from a different side. Conflict runs through Barry’s marriage and comes to a head. Carmel and her church friends can’t stop complaining about Barry. He therefore tries to convince Carmel, who nevertheless thinks he will cheat on her with other women if he stays out late, of his dwindling desire for sex. In Antigua, homosexuality was forbidden and even in Britain it isn’t necessarily easy for older gay Black men. So Barrington – or Barry – leads a double life. The two began dating secretly in their youth, when they were still living in Antigua, and their love affair continued throughout their adult lives in London. He is really in love – though unfortunately not with Carmel, the woman he has been married to for 50 years – but with his lover Morris Courtney de la Roux. We meet Barrington Jedidiah Walker Esq, a 74-year-old dandy and autodidact who is sometimes not entirely honest with himself. Evaristo’s work is characterised by wit, inventiveness and a love of turning things around, and Mr. Loverman moves between London and the Caribbean. Girl, Woman, Other is set in London and the US and features Black women and non-binary people of various diasporas. It’s the story of an older gay couple in love, a rollercoaster ride of emotions between secrecy and coming out, lightened up by extremely funny characters.Įvaristo shared with us in an interview that almost all her books have a “global element”. Loverman is the perfect book for fans of the series Grace and Frankie. Diversity trainer, translator and editor of poco.lit.īernardine Evaristo’s Mr.

Evaristo mr loverman