In Kingston by Starlight, Christopher John Farley explores the rich, often brutal, world of the eighteenth century West Indies as viewed through the prism of the life and legend of Anne Bonny, the infamous woman pirate. This fictionalized account of her life, together with those of Calico Jack Rackam and Mary Read, is recounted in a lyrical, first-person narrative. It opens simply: "I believe I will begin at the end." Farley describes his book in "some sense" as a ghost story, and in a sense it is perhaps a dual ghost story, for his narrator is both haunted by the ghosts of those she lost and is herself a ghost, a shadow of the self she once was when she was young, alive and free on the high seas.
The story tracks Anne from her birth in Ireland to reasonably well-off parents in a remote village. Her father, however, was a gambler, and as the family’s debts mounted they slipped from their station. Ultimately, he fled for America and left his wife and daughter to fend for themselves. After a time, Anne’s mother decides to follow him, and it is during an unfortunate incident aboard the only ship they could afford (a slaver) that her mother is killed. Anne ends up at her father’s plantation in America, only to be disowned by her father without her ever actually seeing him: she is simply told by the maid that he took one look at her while she slept and said, "This is not my daughter."
Lost and alone in America, Anne embarks upon a rather novel plan: she will not prostitute herself but will instead pass herself off as a man and gain work aboard one of the ships which frequent the port. Farley recounts the challenges and deceptions Anne faces while calling herself "Bonn' aboard the ship of Calico Jack Rackam, a dashing rogue about to embark upon a bold plan of his own: piracy.
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1 - Pat Cummings
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