Unseemly Behavior is set in the Caribbean – not the scenic Caribbean of sun, sand and carefree living but a Caribbean beset with troubling realities born of a bloody history and nurtured by generational trauma. In these tales, Stanford selects diverse strands of his society and paints them in their stark realism. A school teacher must confront a student who attempts to rape another; an adult survivor of childhood sex abuse faces her tormentor; overbearing parents drive their son to madness; young men take extreme action to deal with runaway crime on their island. There are simmering racial tensions, crises of faith and betrayals on a grand and intimate scale. Yet here and there, like tropical sunlight filtering through a rotted roof, the human spirit triumphs.
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