Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase her heart broken her resolve intact. Her husband Gilbert Joseph returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady Queenie raised as a farmer's daughter befriends Gilbert and later Hortense with innocence and courage until the unexpected arrival of her husband Bernard who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve. Told in these four voices Small Island is a courageous novel of tender emotion and sparkling wit of crossings taken and passages lost of shattering compassion and of reckless optimism in the face of insurmountable barriers---in short an encapsulation of the immigrant's life.
