"Sheila": The Girl From The Lane

Jamaican novel - Paperback 307 pages. The island of Jamaica boasts pristine white sand beaches, rolling hills with plush green vegetation, pulsating reggae music, and a people as vibrant as the sun. Beneath this picture though is the dark side of the island, of a society undergoing social and economic transformation that produces a myriad of challenges that affects its people in different ways.This is the landscape that has developed Sheila Sampson, the third of seven children of Alphanso and Delceita Sampson, both ordinary working class parents from the inner city community of 33 Lane in the tough Waltham Park Road area of Kingston, Jamaica.Despite the desire of her parents for their daughter to provide an example to her younger siblings, Sheila's youthful exuberances leads her in a completely different direction resulting in her being ostracized from her family and forced to face life on her own and to raise two young children in trying circumstances, especially after the departure of her lover and childhood sweetheart Tony.