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REAPER OF SOULSA Novel of the 1957 Kendal Crash
The Kendal Crash is still the worst nightmare of Jamaicans’ living memory. It is an event that sits roughly midway in Jamaica’s 20th century, between its age of innocence and its era of Independence. In this work of fiction, East claims power over what had eluded her for so long: the truth about Kendal and a sense of closure in the face of so much grief for one family. By mining this herstory, she has used personal tragedy to fashion characters who struggle to find meaning and purpose in the depths of national despair. |
On 1 September, 1957, an excursion train left Montego Bay on its return trip to
Kingston and met disaster halfway there. Dangerously overcrowded, it had
rushed down towards Jamaica’s central plains on its way back to the capital.
Sometime after midnight, in wet conditions, the train derailed near Kendal,
Manchester, creating a horrific tangle of wood, glass, steel and torn bodies. Of
the 254 lives lost, 14, nearly 6 percent of the dead, were members of Beverley
East’s family.