Macmillan Caribbean Writers: She's Gone - Tapa blanda

"In this book, Dawes captures Jamaica perfectly: the sights, sounds, colours, inequalities and lifestyle..." --The Vine

"In summary, it all sounds simple enough, but the detailed intricacy of the plot and Dawes' sheer writing skill make it anything but ... She's Gone is a human tale, with all the attendant foibles, much like a song that is never the same as it was recorded in the studio. It may be better, it may be worse. In this case it is better." --Mel Cook, The Sunday Gleaner

"She's Gone is dark and rich and sweet, like meat close to the bone. Dawes writes from the heart, with tears and laughter, and his work reads like blank verse ... In his first novel, She's Gone, he is scratching a riff to suit his mood." --Book Group Info (Recommended Read)

Kofi, a Jamaican reggae musician, and Keisha, a social researcher from South Carolina, meet at a club where Kofi's band is playing on the tail end of a United States tour. A spark ignites between them and Kofi convinces Keisha to take a chance and follow him to Jamaica. Yet the Jamaica that Dawes writes about is thick with the politics of class and identity, full of characters with distinct agendas and needs - a world quite different from the stereotype of sea and sun. Keisha feels immediately like a stranger on this island, especially as Kofi succumbs to a bout of depression. "She's Gone" delves into the enigmatic challenge of two virtual strangers trying to negotiate differences of culture, nationality, class, and gender. If it is a love story, it is one marked by the harsh realities of human existence revealed in the songs of Bob Marley and the cool sensual intelligence of Milan Kundera.