54 pages • 1 hour read
Bernardine EvaristoMr Loverman
Bernardine EvaristoFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Bernardine Evaristo
Content Warning: This section references racism, anti-gay prejudice, and colonialism, including the history of enslavement.
Bernardine Evaristo is an acclaimed author whose work spans novels, plays, poetry, and nonfiction. With Girl, Woman, Other (2019), she became the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize, 50 years after its inception. Like Mr. Loverman, that novel employs a shifting point of view, focalizing 12 different main characters. Her books address themes of race, gender, sexuality, identity, belonging, and diaspora. In addition to her acclaim in writing, she has also achieved academic success, receiving many esteemed fellowships and working as a professor of creative writing at Brunel University London. She received her doctorate in creative writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, for her work on Mr. Loverman.
In addition to the novel itself, her doctoral dissertation included a critical evaluation of the portrayal of Black men in British fiction and an explanation of how she had executed the novel. The discussion focuses principally on the work of Black authors, as Evaristo is most interested in how they represent themselves. She interrogates how Black authors can write against harmful or oversimplified representations of Black people, and she herself focuses on marginalized voices to place traditionally unheard narratives at the center of her fiction.
The intersection of Barry’s race, ethnicity, age, and orientation makes him one such voice. In her research, Evaristo found that most literature concerning gay Black men from the Caribbean was told from the perspective of young men and recent immigrants. Evaristo instead explores the relationships of the 74-year-old closeted Barry, who has been married to a woman and living in London for 50 years. In telling his story, she aims to critically contribute to discussions surrounding these intersecting identities.
Cultural Context: Caribbean Immigrants in London
Mr. Loverman’s cast of characters consists of different generations of Antiguan immigrants living and working in London. Antigua is an island in the Caribbean that forms part of the country Antigua and Barbuda. As immigrants, the novel’s characters are part of what is called the Caribbean diaspora: the dispersion of Caribbean people throughout the rest of the world.
Many of these emigrants’ roots in the Caribbean were relatively recent. Millions of people, for example, were brought to the Caribbean from Africa during the Atlantic slave trade, and many of these enslaved people (or their descendants) were later shipped elsewhere in the Americas. The flow of people into and out of the area continued after the end of slavery, resulting in the region’s modern ethnic diversity. The legacy of slavery and colonialism has loomed particularly large in driving emigration from the Caribbean; Antigua, for example, was colonized by Great Britain in 1632 and only gained full independence in 1981, and its population is over 90% Black—i.e., descendants of enslaved Africans. Because colonization often drained colonies of wealth and resources, people from previously colonized countries have often needed to relocate to the former colonial countries to financially support themselves and their families.
Caribbean immigrants in London have set up their own communities and networks and often continue to practice their own cultures. In the novel, the first-generation immigrants mostly socialize with their inner circle of fellow Antiguans, and they still embrace their Antiguan culture through Calypso dancing, drinking rum, eating Caribbean cuisine, and speaking patois-inflected language.
Owing partly to the influence of colonizing powers (a subject the novel explores), modern Antiguan culture tends toward bias against LGBT people. Research shows that, in some Caribbean countries, up to 53% of people claim to “hate” gay people, while 63% indicate that they would not socialize with gay people (Beck, Edward, et al. “Attitudes Towards Homosexuals in Seven Caribbean Countries: Implications for an Effective HIV Response.” AIDS Care, vol. 29 no. 12, 2017, pp. 1557-66). A Human Rights Watch report on LGBT people in the Eastern Caribbean reports that most LGBT people in these regions live in fear of isolation or violence (“‘I Have to Leave to Be Me’: Discriminatory Laws Against LGBT People in the Eastern Caribbean.” Human Rights Watch, 2018). Churches, which form an important part of Caribbean culture, play a significant role in spreading anti-gay bias, and many LGBT people resort to heterosexual marriages to protect themselves, as Barry has in Mr. Loverman. Though the novel’s characters now live in the more LGBT-friendly city of London, they continue to hold prejudiced views of LGBT people, contributing to the novel’s examination of Anti-Gay Bias, Violence, and the Fear of Coming Out.
Unlock all 54 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
