Family secrets at heart of this debut novel

BLACK CAKE, a cake made with rum-soaked fruit is a tradition in the Bennett family.

Many readers from British backgrounds will know it as fruit cake, served at Christmas time, or at weddings, and the rum may often be substituted with brandy.

And most families who eat this traditional cake make it off tattered recipes that have been handed down through generations.

The Bennett family of mom, Eleanor, and dad, Bert; their life as a family of black people in southern California is a good one.

The children: Benny the daughter, and son Byron get along fine.

It is a traditional and loving home with the usual squabbles, trips to the beach.

The one thing that stands out is that Eleanor is a strong swimmer and fantastic surfer.

Byron adopts surfing with his mom without question.

But, he does have questions (although he knows the answer) as to why when he is a social media expert on the life of the deepest parts of the oceans, and the most suitable person to head up the institute he works for, he keeps being passed over.

It rankles, but his life is a full one. Benny on the other hand lives in New York, and dreams of starting her own tea shop.

She’s fallen out with her family over a confession about her sexual identity told at a family lunch.

She misses her father’s funeral, and she keeps in contact with her mother secretly over the years of her absence.

The theme of secrets is very much at the heart of this debut novel.

Because Eleanor and Bert are not who they seem to be.

Their lives began in the Caribbean where Eleanor (or Covey as she was known then) surfed and fell in love with the island version of Gibbs, who is in love with her, but due to go to England.

Things fall apart after Covey’s mother disappears and she has to escape the island after a doomed attempt to marry her off to an older man to settle her father’s gambling debts.

Her friend Bunny is left on the island, but keeps up her swimming and becomes world-famous, but none of this rich history is known to the Bennett siblings.

When their mother dies, she leaves an instruction, she has baked a small black cake, that they must eat together and that they will know when the time is right.

They also have to listen to a series of recordings in the presence of her attorney.

This story spans generations and generational pain.

You can argue the toss about which culture “black cake” belongs to, was it an imposition on islanders by colonisers, in the end, I would venture to say it doesn’t matter.

It is an artefact that balances cultures and families.

It is one link that Eleanor has back to the island home she can never return to.

Although at times the narrative of the story seems to stretch into the very unlikely, this does not detract from the real pleasure this book offers.

Through a series of amazing coincidences and revelations, the story of the lives of the Bennett children becomes particularly the story of displaced children who frequently due to war, or colonisation or slavery never really know their full history.

But, generally it also looks at what binds us and breaks us apart.

A great read.