Looking Back

In this riveting political autobiography, Jamaican journalist Joan Williams bares her soul to readers sharing some transfixing experiences ranging from her dangerous fight against socialism/communism to the netherworld to which she descended emotionally when her only son was murdered six weeks after becoming a father. With the current alarming developments in Venezuela which include shortages of basic food, government sanctioned violence, threats to press freedom and the liberty continuously being on the front pages, "Looking Back......" is especially relevant as many of the political happenings there mirror what is outlined as having occurred in Jamaica during the cold war era. During that period, that small nation state also experimented with "socialism" which apart from the shortages, led to the island being "invaded" by operatives of the Russian KGB, Cuban DGI and American CIA for almost five years as what Williams describes as an "undeclared civil war" raged. Chronicling her own political activism and the fight against socialism/communism in Jamaica during that period, this then young mother who takes the words uttered by the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King that "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter," seriously, explains how she had to make heart-wrenching sacrifices to help keep her small island out of the clutches of the communists. However, looking back now at where her country is today, she at times questions whether the efforts they made and the dangers they withstood to keep the communists at bay, were really worth the effort? However, in 2014 Williams took her fourth trip to Cuba, this time it was to meet the family which she had recently discovered lived there, and seeing the depressing conditions, lack of hope etc. which she found there, she answers her own question with a definitive "YES." Moving to the lighter side, Williams explains how she got involved in journalism, rising to become a popular radio talk show host. She also shares with readers the influence various members of her family had on her, experiences with racism both at home and abroad and in a short hilarious chapter, tells readers about her experiments with ganja (marijuana) with which the name Jamaica has always been closely associated. But in the heart- wrenching chapter entitled TO HELL AND BACK she takes readers on the emotional roller coaster she tumbled helplessly on for years, reeling through numerous stages of grief, helplessness, agitation, inexplicable exhaustion disrupted by bouts of sobbing and the total desire to withdraw from the world. Losing a child she declares, is the worst tragedy that could ever befall a parent. Looking back at her own "cold case" two decades later which the local police had shown no interest in solving, Williams weighs the evidence and now arrives at a most startling conclusion about who really assassinated her only son "Looking Back" is almost impossible to put down and is indeed a must read.