The Convict and the Colonel. A Story of Colonialism and Resistance in the Caribbean. By Richard Price. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp 296 With a new afterword.; Originally published by Beacon Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8223-3823-8)

Let me start off by stating that Richard Price’s The Convict and the Colonel is a complicated book. Not in the sense that it was difficult read, but I spent the first 38 pages wondering where he was going to take his readers. By the time I got to the second chapter I realized where he wanted to take his readers. Still, I could not figure out if this effort was a book on history, on postcolonialism, or a biography. In hindsight, the book has all those ingredients plus anthropology, folklore, entwined in a discussion of collective memory. After I settled into Price’s writing style I began to appreciate his exercise much more. Throughout the book Price makes use of oral and documented histories, postmodern and traditional narratives, and personal and collective memories to provide a larger view of Martinique of the last century. Price’s book is an incomplete history of Martinique from the 1925 Massacre of the Diamant to the story of the convict and eccentric folk artist, Médard to the immediate present. It is Médard’s ‘photo’, actually a bust, of the colonel is the important element that ties the book together. The book is divided into three sections, each focusing on three historical moments. The first section reconstructs the events of the 1925 election. For Price the election serves as a precipice between the apex of colonial rule and the beginnings of Martiniquan modernity. This section is divided into two columns that made reading this chapter arduous; on the right, the French official account, and on the left, later local and leftist’s recounting. The division of the left and right columns is also categorizing the various elements during this explosive time, when in all probability there were additional positions and philosophies not being considered by Price. This categorization left me feeling that Price’s positionality on Martinique a little too dualistic. At first it was difficult to simultaneously read the two columns and it never became any easier. This device, as novel as it seems, is one that relegates readers to subconsciously take and not really decide for themselves about this historic moment. Sometimes the stories of resistance are best understood from an individual perspective. I feel that Price understood this and he does it effectively in his second section. He presents the story of Médard and is able to show through example how oral and official histories do not necessarily contradict each other, but instead lend a bigger view into the story wanting to be told. In the local stories of Médard, people say that he was arrested for his ‘photograph’ of the colonel; however, according to Price’s research in colonial records, Médard was incarcerated for common thievery. What these two versions do is contribute to Price’s efforts to demonstrate how Médard resisted colonial authority and maintained level of autonomy that is often missed in postmodern subaltern literature. Médard’s importance outside of this construction should be questioned. First, Price never knew him. Médard wasn’t in Price’s radar in the first twenty years on the island. Second, For Médard’s contemporaries and for Price, it seems that Médard’s importance came postmortem. The role Médard plays is more important to our present more so than in his own life. As a result of this late influence, Médard has become part of Martiniquan life. It appears that the locals, the Creole elite, and France have usurped Médard’s folk art and his little house to make it part of the post card tourist culture of Martinique. Part III moves readers to the present where the memory of Médard serves as a critique of …