Finished this over the weekend, on the train ride down to Baltimore. Levy is the author Small Island, a novel about Caribbean immigrants in England during WWII. I thought it was wonderful; so did the Whitbread judges in 2004. Anyways, I just read her latest, Fruit of the Lemon. Actually, I thought it was her latest until just a minute ago, when I visited her website and found that it was published in 1999. I have a review copy that says it's coming out in Feb 2007, but that must be its U.S. publication date.
Anyway, that pub date makes much more sense to me, because while it is a very good book, it isn't as transcendent as Small Island. It makes more sense to me that Levy was still working on various ideas relating to her topic -- in very general terms, it's the relationship of Caribbean people to the former Mother England, told through wonderful warm real human characters. And for sure the characters in Fruit were compelling. The problem I thought is that we don't get enough of a lot of them, and some appear and disappear abruptly. And the structure of the story is very First This Part Happened, and Then This Part Happened, and not much relationship between them.
Still, having said all that, I raced through it and would recommend it. I just think if you haven't read any Levy, start with Small Island.
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