Book Review: How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

“A book, I soon learned, was time travel. Each page held irrefutable power.”

Born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Sinclair tells us of her upbringing in a very strict Rastafarian household. She tells us the story of being under the thumb of her dad who was basically a Rastafarian zealot and lived in fear 24/7 that his family would be corrupted by the Western world. So much so, that he kept them away from other people, made them grow dreadlocks, made them dress modestly from head to toe and banned them from so many other things we would consider normal. On the flip side is her mom, who was so smart but so passive and was complicit in her dad’s choice on how to raise the kids. Sinclair walks us through from the very beginning to the point where she began to rebel and begin to discover life for herself.

“The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.”

Wow guys, not since Sex Cult Nun have I read a memoir that was this mind blowing. And to no one’s surprise, what the two have in common is – religion. Sinclair was able to write an impactful memoir because she understood where she came from. Earlier, when I said the book started from the very beginning it’s because she gave us the background of her parents and we get to understand their individual traumas and understand their motivations to how they became who they were – not that it excused it but we had some kind of context.

“I was still young enough to keep approaching him, a kicked dog slinking back, doing as my mother did.”

The writing style in which Sinclair wrote this book was so good and there was a heavy air of foreshadowing that had you on the edge of your seat as her father became more and more volatile. It almost felt like it was a thriller until you remembered that it is a true life story. The juxtaposition of her father getting more volatile and her mother getting more withdrawn was fascinating especially when you consider that the thing that saved her and her siblings was how gifted they were academically, which you could say they got from their mother. She made sure her kids were well educated and used it to their advantage. Though her mother was complicit in some areas, she definitely scrapped for her children.

“How would I know where to begin? Here, in the same hills that had made my father, now sprung the seed of my own rebellion.”

As fanatical as the dad was, the one thing that confused me was that he did not stop them from going to school and in fact was proud of her accolades even if it came from the Westerners he seemed to despise so much. Since the mom was a tutor, she could easily have home schooled them but Sinclair going to school revealed her poetry gifts which led to her expanding her views on the world and realizing that perhaps there was more than what her father had told her. I will say though, despite all the awfulness, something out there was looking out for Sinclair and her family because things always seemed to work out just at the right time.

“The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.”

With the way, the book ended it seems Sinclair wanted to focus on just her upbringing and how she broke out of the mindset. It would have been nice to know where the relationship with her dad ended up in detail and I was particularly interested in knowing how this affected her romantic relationships. But overall, this is a memoir that will stick with you for a long time. Besides just telling her story, I learned a lot about Rastafarianism, something I knew nothing about before this. You can tell how much she loves her home land as she described various parts of Jamaica in detail and with love. I am always in awe how people remember so much detail about their lives because I know personally, I remember certain stories in detail but for the most part they are hazy. Though tough at times, I recommend this book.

Taynement