Saga Boy
My Life of Blackness and Becoming
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4.2 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Speaker's Book Award
LONGLISTED for the 2021 Toronto Book Award
The triumph of Saga Boy is the triumph of Blackness everywhere--the irrepressible instinct for survival in a world where Blacks are prey."
--Ian Williams, Giller Prize-winning author of Reproduction
An enthralling, deeply personal account of a young immigrant's search for belonging and Black identity amid the long-lasting effects of cultural dislocation.
Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only Black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines.
He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah," a punk rock rapper, "Molasses," a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus," a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy," a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself.
Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his Black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this deeply moving memoir, novelist Downing (Molasses) offers a lyrical story "about unbelonging, about placelessness, about leaving everything behind." As he reflects on the long and arduous path from his youth in a small town in Trinidad to his evangelical teenage years in Northern Ontario to his eventual success as a musician and actor in Toronto, he attempts to understand himself as a Black man toggling between worlds. After his grandmother's death in 1986 forced Downing, at age 11, to leave his home in Monkey Town, Trinidad, and live with his aunt in rural Canada, he discovered hair metal music, decided to become a "rock'n'roll badass," and spent more than a decade cycling through a number of identities: "They called me Tony in Trinidad... Mic Dainjah when I toured England with my rock 'n' roll heroes, Molasses when I crooned soul songs, and Mike D. when I plucked the banjo at folk festivals." The son of a wandering, absent father—and a sexual assault survivor—Downing traces how he "turned the ugliness of my life into something beautiful" through art and music, eventually finding his "boldest, baddest self" in his 30s as a Canadian pop star by the name of John Orpheus. Suffused with poetic prose that jumps off the page, this inspiring account sings.
