Waiting in Vain

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Summary: Waiting In Vain has touched me in so many ways!
Review: It just so happens that Waiting in Vain deals with many of the issues that I have been dealing with in my life. New love, loss of a close friend and finding myself and my Jamaican roots. The dialog between characters was real and engaging. A wonderful storyline and great characters. Looking foward to the next one!

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Summary: I thought the book was a brilliant read.
Review: I read Waiting in Vain over a long weekend and I simply could not put it down. I found it totally engrossing from start to finish and I really revelled in the writer's use of imagery and his finely-honed characterisation. The story is a love story but it is also much more than that. It explores issues of masculinity, homosexuality and the way in which our pasts inform our present. The strength of the novel also lies in the depth of the protagonist Fire's characterisation, he is no cardboard cut-out. His whole self is explored through the story, his emotions, intellect, motivations, vulnerabilities, -- unfortunately the portrayal of an holistic black male character in fiction is still all too rare. Waiting in Vain is a book that defines a generation of 20/30 something African Americans/Caribbeans who are young, upwardly mobile, professional, artistic, slightly off-beat and moving through the boundaries their parents came up against. If you read one book this year, read this one!

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Summary: The book was a pleasure to read from cover to cover
Review: Colin wrote a wonderful debut novel. His characters were people that you cared about and quite possibly know from everyday life.

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Summary: Excellent work!!!
Review: In "Waiting in Vain", it is obvious that Colin Channer is writing from the heart. The novel is detailed, provocative and well written. The author's ability to describe romantic relationships from both the female and male perspectives is exceptional. It shows that he pays attention. This is an excellent first novel, and I am recommending this book to everyone.

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Summary: Fun, spicy, well-developed read
Review: This book was an enjoyable read. I was on the edge of my seat from the moment I turned the first page. The details and dialect were spectacular. I longed for the islands, 'mon. The characters were realistic, humorous, and not to mention, well-developed. I can't wait for this author's next novel.

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Summary: The cadence of Jamaica
Review: Colin Chaner, the young Jamaican-American author, brings to this first novel a unique style of writing that sings with the cadence of Jamaica and is filled with sensual metaphors. This is a modern love story, getting deep into the heart of his hero, Fire, a sensitive and successful poet and writer in his thirties who wears his hair in dreadlocks and whose travels bring him to London and New York. When he meets Sylvia, a magazine editor, their attraction is immediate. She's has Jamaican roots too, and shares his love of reggae music among other things. Problem is, she's already involved with another man.

Contrasting the almost idealization of Fire and Sylvia, is a friend of Fire's, a failed artist named Ian. Ian angers easily, picks fights, messes up his relationships and is on a downward spiral of destruction.

Race plays a role in the story too, but only as a backdrop for a deeper understanding of the people. For example, Jamaica's political and commercial

structure is almost entirely black which naturally effects the characters' lives.

It took me a while to get used to poetic style of the writer and his heavy use of metaphors, but once I did, I was swept into the story. However, my reading was slowed down because of some of the dialog which was written phonetically to capture the Jamaican dialect. I wasn't familiar with some of the expressions and even though I tried to sound some of it out, I know I missed things. I see that this trend of letting characters speak in their actual dialog is becoming more popular today. In the two books I recently read by Lois Ann Yamanka, I also found it difficult to follow her use of pidgin. This of course is the choice that a writer must make when striving for authenticity.

This is a good first novel and a new fresh voice. I found it a treat to enter this author's world. Recommended.

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Summary: A "real" love story with real Black characters.
Review: Colin Channer has made a break through in romance writing. His writing style is detailed enough to give the reader information about what the characters look like and what they are thinking, yet elusive enough to allow the reader to use his or her imagination. I am looking for more from this author, and I hope to see a sequel to Waiting in Vain.

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Summary: ASTONISHING
Review: I must admit that I read the reviews before I read the book. I started reading with the notion that the book couldn't be all that...

I was definitely wrong. What a suprisingly good read! It has something that a lot of "contemporary" novels lack; a good story and well developed characters.

A must if you are looking for a GOOD read.

Can't wait to see what's next from Mr. Channer!

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Summary: Waiting in Vain -- Fire and light in multi-faceted gem
Review: December 28, 1998 The bumper crop of new novels in the black love story genre has proven the obvious--the existence of a long-deprived, but only recently discovered market, hungry for works that reflect the black experience in love and life. At a point that the genre appeared to be settling into the formulaic and predictable, Colin Channer's debut takes dead aim at satisfying a more discerning appetite. As its warm reception amply demonstrates--Number 1 on Essence magazine's Black bestsellers list--it's a bulls-eye. A gifted storyteller and graceful, lyrical writer, Channer offers up finely etched characters, and an amazing ear for dialogue (complete with the musical cadence of the Jamaican patois) and a carefully crafted storyline that captures the experiences and issues that fascinate, preoccupy, and counfound Black people. It also treats readers to an experience so rare as to have hardly registered as long missing--a richly detailed exploration in healthy, Black, heterosexual masculinity. On the surface, a fast-paced trans-Atlantic love story set against the backdrop of the glitzy, glamorous art world, Channer pushes far beyond romance. He deftly depicts the particular twist that the Black experience gives to issues of caste, class, status, self-esteem, achievement, and security and how it informs, and sometimes distorts, the possibilities for love and friendship. Sylvia, orphaned and abused as a child, is a talented magazine editor, intelligent, cultured, and beautiful. Proud of her achievements, she fiercely protects the markers of status that show just how far she has come. She fears and avoids any choice that may result in a backward slip into circumstances and a life more in keeping with her hardscrabble beginnings. Involved with a handsome, powerful, and successful man--perhaps a bit arrogant and shallow--she views love as a practical matter just as much as (perhaps more than?) the province of the heart and soul. Fire, Jamaican born and bred, comes from a privileged background and is a charming and well-educated writer--romantic, worldly, intelligent, accomplished and evolved. Recently burnt and fearful of same, he is irresistably drawn to Sylvia from the moment that their paths cross, but all too aware of the potential (even likelihood) for searing disappointment given her circumstances. Ian, Fire's best friend, achieves acclaim and recognition in the heady, cutthroat, and fickle international art world. But as an Indian, a low caste in Jamaican society, he has neither healed from deep feelings of unworthiness nor developed a spiritually rooted sense of self. Despite his great talent, Ian remains greviously vulnerable, weakened, wounded and angry. The well developed context for understanding Fire and Sylvia makes clear how nothing about their forging, developing and sustaining a relationship would be easy. Their struggle shows how the primal urges toward survival, self-protection, holding on, and climbing up can misinform and misguide choices. It also shows how courage, compassion, and trust in the needs of the heart and soul might spare the characters from forever waiting in vain. The tortured friendship between Ian and Fire offers an additional prism for exploring the roles of maturity, self-expression, and responsbility in love--even filial. Black women's weariness and frustration in failing to figure/work out some of these issues in our own lives may account for the popularity of the "trifling brother" sub-genre of the black love story. These novels draw readers into the heat of battle, but offer little by way of edifying light. In Channer's multi-faceted gem, the heat emanates not from battle, but from the vivid, evocative, steamy, sensual, and passionate love scenes. The light comes from the richly illuminated exploration of how Fire, a strong black man in possession of well-developed emotional/spiritual tools, a strong sense of self, wherewithal and will, expresses and demonstrates through word, action, and deed his (perhaps futile) love for Sylvia. Shining through Channer's writing is a deep compassion for his characters with all their foibles. Like author Wally Lamb (She's Come Undone), he trusts his ability to portray the innermost feelings of women. In Channer's deft hands, Sylvia's character is fully realized. There is no doubt that Sylvia loves Fire. But she is unsure of his prospects and fearful of losing hard-won ground. In one memorable scene, for example, her choices move her inexorably into a mortifying situation that Fire witnesses. In it, her struggle and embarrassment is palpable as she dangles, utterly exposed, in exquisite irresolution, between compromise and resignation, on the one hand, and longing and possiblity, on the other. In view of this book's depth, wisdom, intelligence and worldview, it could be excused for not being much fun. But it is an intoxicating roller coaster ride taking us to Kingston, New York, and London as the lovers attempt to overcome fear, and to trust in the truest parts of themselves and the power of love.

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Summary: READ THIS BOOK!!
Review: Colin Channer is a wonderful writer! I really enjoyed reading this novel. The characters were full of depth and the story had many dimensions. It's poetic, it's sensual, it's a MUST READ. I can't say enough about Waiting in Vain. Buy the book and you will know what I'm talking about!