Uprooting, Marchelle Farrell
‘The history and culture of Trinidad, originally called Iëre, Land of the Hummingbirds, by its people, is deftly combined with Farrell’s personal experiences of childhood on the tropical island, and the trauma carried by generations of citizens living with the impacts of colonialism.’
In her stunning debut memoir, Uprooting, Marchelle Farrell tells the story of growing roots and creating a home. Having left behind her childhood home and family in Trinidad to study in England, we join Farrell as she, her husband and two children move to a country home in Somerset. The story flits between Farrell’s childhood memories of Trinidad and her life in the present, navigating social and political tumult amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the joys and trials of mothering, and building community as a Black Caribbean immigrant living in the English countryside.
I have long been a fan of Farrell’s monthly musings on gardening and life in her newsletter, These are the things my garden told me, but the power of her prose, her skilful observation, and her uncanny ability to weave together science and spirituality comes alive in this memoir. Carried through the seasons by her garden, Farrell’s experience as a psychiatrist comes to the fore as she unpacks complex feelings of belonging in a place that is often still hostile to Black immigrants. The history and culture of Trinidad, originally called Iëre, Land of the Hummingbirds, by its people, is deftly combined with Farrell’s personal experiences of childhood on the tropical island, and the trauma carried by generations of citizens living with the impacts of colonialism. Farrell confronts the contradiction of her desire to settle in England, but rather than try to replicate her childhood home or mimic the English gardens around her, she grows something new.
As Farrell attempts to ground herself in a new home, the garden comes alive to embrace her, and she learns that she can find abundance in the landscape around her. Through an act of giving to the land, she discovers what the land can gives back to the people who care for it.
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