Product Description

From stationmaster s daughter to wife of one of Jamaica s most charismatic prime ministers Beverley Manley s life has been an odyssey. As a young girl, starved of her mother s love because she was darker than her siblings, and forced to do housework while her sisters relaxed, Beverley was a modern-day Cinderella. Told incessantly that she was good for nothing, she defied her mother s prophecy, and triumphed over her ordinary beginnings first as a model in London and later becoming a household name in local radio, television and on stage. It was her path at the then Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) that would lead her directly to Michael Manley and to Jamaica House. Marriage to Michael also lead to her political awakening; not content with being the docile wife, Beverly assumed an activist role in the governing People s National Party (PNP), becoming embroiled in the ideological politics of the 1970s that would eventually lead to her estrangement from Michael, the destruction of their marriage, her flight into the arms of a rival lover and finally to a self-imposed exile in the US, where she took refuge from the ire of the Jamaican elite for daring to walk out on one of their own. But Beverly was to redeem herself and earn new respect as a broadcaster, commentator and incisive interviewer on the immensely popular and innovative Breakfast Club radio show. Now older and much wiser, Beverly tells it like it is in this intriguing and revealing memoir. It is a rags to riches story almost; a story of triumph and loss; of rising again and finally one of redemption.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #850932 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
With grace, balance, and wonderful candour, Beverley Manley tells the story of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as the wife of Jamaica¹s charismatic leader in the 1970s, Michael Manley. The articulateness and intimacy of her recounting the years both before meeting Michael Manley and afterward, of their life together as leading figures in the People¹s National Party, are a compelling contribution to literature as well as government studies. Beverley Manley reports with the aplomb of a seasoned interviewer on television and radio. She speaks with an authoritative yet friendly voice and records the political and the personal as one who is committed to feminist issues. Manley tells of her struggle to escape the confinement of her relationship with an argumentative and domineering mother and of her success both before and after marriage with working in the media. She is a fine scholar and architect of women¹s rights in Jamaica, and she holds nothing back in touching on all the issues that were of such consequence in the era of cataclysmic change in Jamaican society under her husband¹s leadership. Beverley Manley speaks with a gentle and winning voice from her own commitment to a leftist positioning in politics. She need make no apology for this for it is after all her own memoirs that she is articulating with such clarity and force. Her accounting of her growing up as the stationmaster¹s daughter is an interesting record of a time when girls still had to wear the Oblood cloth¹. She recounts the caring for (washing) and difficulty of this awkward garment and this candour previews the openness with which she will discuss her marriage in later chapters. Manley has a zest for life and a love of femininity that pervades the otherwise serious text of the rise of the PNP and its ultimate fall with the elections of 1980. In between those years is the story of the growth of a dream for a more equitable Jamaica than the one that existed at that time. Beverley Manley is able to articulate the growth of the structures of government with clarity and vision. She was after all a young black woman who was coming into her own as a scholar and First Lady. Her ability to recall and recount these turbulent years with vivid aplomb is a boon for the reader who is interested in reliving them ¬ revisiting them through her point of view. Her early days as First Lady are summarised in the following statement: ³There was no doubt some in the party regarded me with a certain amount of suspicion. I collaborated with many members of parliament in their constituencies ¬ and not only at election time. I was a hard and committed worker who was never interested in representative politics. People did not understand this.² Manley worked as hard to establish herself within the family. She became a wife that was on good terms with Mardi and Pardi (Edna and Norman W Manley) as well as with Michael¹s children by his former marriages. She recalls that she showed her manuscript to Rachel at a difficult time in the writing and it was Rachel¹s encouragement that helped her move through to completion. It would have been a great loss to social history and to feminist studies otherwise. Manley¹s memoirs are replete with information that encourages all women, especially in the island where machismo is still so dominant. Manley says: ³During another conversation with Fidel, as we talked about the workers¹ struggle, he told me that, as difficult as it was, it would triumph long before the struggle for women¹s rights. I was upset at the time by his words, but have since come to understand how correct he was about the intransigence of the movement for equality between women and men.² Throughout this fine text are such thoughts and asides that help to centre the narrative in wo --The Jamaica Observer

About the Author
Beverly Manley is former Jamaican model, and popular media personality in Jamaica, hosting highly respected talk shows discussing issues of national, regional and international importance.

Customer Reviews

No Class
I purchased this book because I read a preview in a newspaper and thought it interesting.

To say the least, I was very disappointed with the way the book was written. It seems to be that Beverly just wanted to get stuff off her chest, or was trying to make herself look good. The woman has no class.

The first couple of chapters I found very nauseating. There was just too much information on her family's history. Things that should have been left to the reader's imagination was crassly placed on paper and seems totally irrelevant.

The conclution I draw from this book is that both Michael and Beverly knowingly used each other to further their individual agendas. Micheal came out the winner though because Beverly was clearly in a league she was not prepared for.

Love, Culture, Politics: The Reform of Jamaica
Beverly Manley, former wife of the late Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley, has written a compelling memoir in The Manley Memoirs. Daughter of a railroad laborer and ladies' man and a contentious mother who felt she had married down, Beverly grew up in the Jamaican countryside with her two older sisters and younger brother. The Anderson girl's job was to get a good education and not shame the family despite moving often and enduring their parents' tumultuous marriage compounded by their father's "sweethearts." The darkest of the three girls, Beverly was constantly reminded by her mother, who was always frustrated by her husband's philandering, that she took after her father. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s, Beverly's political awareness was awakened by accompanying her father, Eric, to political party meetings. Jamaica was on the verge of becoming an island nation that was gaining strides in independence from British rule.

After high school, Beverly took a job with a television station, traveled, lived and worked in London, returned to Jamaica, had her own talk show and met Michael Manley, son of Norman Manley, who came from a long-time, mixed-race, established Jamaican family. At first, Beverly resisted Manley's flirtations; he had the reputation of being a big-time playboy and had already been married three times. Eighteen years her senior, there was also the class divisions that separated them. Though their social circles occasionally overlapped, the distinct caste systems were almost always adhered to and there was some initial disapproval when Beverly and Manley first became a couple.

Beverly and Michael Manley were the successful, power couple of the People's National Party (PNP); attractive, wealthy (on paper), socially connected, the prime minister and his wife came to be known as a voice for the common people. This was also a time of growth for the First Lady; she led all kinds of causes, got several bills passed for the poor and disenfranchised, and children and went on to University to obtain a degree. Over the years though, her ideals and that of her husband, drifted apart, no longer aligned. Eventually, the discord among the PNP and the government took its toll on their marriage. When Manley finally lost his prime minister post in 1980, their life as they knew it changed on so many levels.

This was more than a memoir; it also encompassed cultural history, the political history, and social mores of Jamaica. Beverly Manley wrote frankly and forthright of her troubled relationship with her mother, the mistakes she made as a wife and mother, and of Jamaica's troubled political process. I had the pleasure of meeting Beverly Manley when she had a book signing at the African American Library & Museum of Oakland this past fall. She is a regal, commanding woman who came from humble beginnings and became First Lady of her country to live an austere, colorful life This is a worthwhile read for those who are interested in Caribbean studies and for those who enjoy reading Jamaican literature.

Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub

NOT WORTH THE MONEY
This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I wish I could get a refund. Ms. Manley in my opinion spent more time focusing on names than the even. The entire book has about 500 and I am not joking about 500 names of famous or so called diplomatic people and their status in society. It is obvious Ms. Manley wants people to know she is not a nobody she was the wife of a Prime Minister. Truly a waste of my $18.00. I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of this novel and was highly highly disappointed after reading it.