Sometimes There's A Winner (ePub)

A story of poverty, injustice and revenge in Jamaica, SOMETIMES THERE'S A WINNER tells the story of a poor black gardener, Byron Reid, and his sister Nadia, who work for a wealthy white Lebanese-Jamaican family in Kingston. Byron Reid surpasses his work ambitions and achieves success in a variety of jobs with Abraham Faroud, and is driven to bankruptcy by his employer's son Fabian who exploits his sister's innocence and vulnerability when she worked as a servant in the Faroud home. Byron uses incriminating information about his employer which he has secretly collected as the basis for demands for himself and his sister. Although the story is fictional, a part of it was inspired by the experience of someone I knew well, and who shared his experiences with me. The story is set in the context of the "e;Haves"e; and "e;Have Nots"e; in Jamaica. The attitudes towards skin color in Jamaica have changed slowly, influenced by the emigration of large percentages of white, Chinese and light-skinned Jamaicans. Facilitated by Jamaica's independence from England and access to higher education which was limited when the author was a boy, highly visible jobs today in almost every sector of Jamaican business and civil service are held by black men and women. But poor, rural Jamaicans still struggle for education and decent jobs, and few ever get an opportunity to escape poverty.