If I Survive You is Jonathan Escoffery's debut work of book-length fiction, published in 2022. Structured as a series of interconnected short stories, it comes very close to qualifying as a novel and indeed reads like one. The book depicts the lives of an immigrant family from Jamaica struggling to make their way in America and is told through eight independent short stories which nevertheless intertwine with each other.
Topper and Sanya fled the poverty and political instability shaping their lives in Jamaica in the 1970s. Unfortunately, it does not take long to discover that the United States is no problem-free utopia itself. The couple has two sons for whom they desperately attempt to give a life that rises to some point on the broad spectrum known collectively as living the American Dream. Alas, America presents several obstacles to attaining its dream, from the predictability of systemic racism to the unpredictability of natural disasters like the devastating Hurricane Andrew which became in 1992 became and remains one of the most destructive storms to ever hit the U.S.
One might well ask what separates a story told as a series of short stories from a story told in chapters when it comes to defining what constitutes a novel. Perhaps there are multiple answers to that question that is apt, but above all else, the one unifying aspect of a novel rarely found in short story cycles is an overarching plot. Of course, there are a host of novels that gain their fame in part from being plotless. In most instances, however, those novels tend to be experimental in form, structure, and composition.
By contrast, If I Survive You is mostly presented as straightforward narrative are written straightforwardly. The only difficulty that some readers might confront is the presentation of some dialogue in Jamaican patois. But that is a minor hurdle that is easily overcome. As might be expected from its structure, the story told in this book is conveyed through the perspective of more than one narrator. And yet even here, this collection of stories manages to feel like reading a cohesive novel. Despite the multiple perspectives, ultimately it winds up being the point-of-view of the younger brother, Trelawney, which dominates the narrative and gives it a muscular backbone. Trelawney faces an identity crisis more intense than his older brother or his parents. The opening lines of the book, from the first story titled "In Flux" has Trelawney writing:
"It begins with What are you? hollered from the perimeter of your front yard when you were nine—younger, probably. You'll be asked again throughout junior high school and high school, then out in the world, in strip clubs, in food courts, over the phone, and at various menial jobs."
When Trelawney directly confronts his mother with the question, "Are we Black?" her first impulse is to deflect with ancestral lineages that include Jewish, Irish, and possibly Arabian. He blocks that defense by pressuring her, insisting that the litany fails to answer his question satisfactorily. His mother then explodes in a fit of sudden anger. What fuels this fire is not explicitly stated, but her reply says everything that needs to be said: "I was never asked such stupidness before coming to this country.'
That little conversation reveals the trouble with Trelawney that allows his collection to be considered, at some level, a novel without a unifying plot. It is a novel of ideas masquerading as a short story collection. The stories comprising this book are mostly set at the bottom of Florida and that is not by accident. There is a reason why Hurricane Andrew's direct hit on this area becomes part of the story. There is a reason for a Cuban girlfriend. There is a reason why the answer to "what are you" may be stimulated by the expectation that the answer will be Dominican or Puerto Rican or just simply black.
The setting of these stories is not just Miami or Dade Country or the southern tip of the Florida peninsula. It is the end of America. No matter what corner of the country you set out from, the farthest and final place you can go and remain in the contiguous country is the tip of Florida. It is the end of the line. Unless that is, you start from there. If I Survive You is a story of immigrants confronting racism like nothing they've ever known back home at the very first place their migrant journey takes them. That entire story is one defined by the question "what are you" in all its various expectations and assumptions without much concern that it might be perceived as a demonstration of stupidity.
