Shape-shifter.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

To describe Shape-Shifter as stories on West Indian themes gives no clue to their range. Similarly to indicate that they are as far apart as London and the Caribbean is unhelpful. They are as various as the legendary magician of the title.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

These stories range in setting from the Caribbean and the Guyanese Coast to the streets of London. Dreaming of return to family in Jamaica, the narrator of ``Eat Labba and Drink Greek Water'' observes, ``Whichever side of the Atlantic we are on, the dream is always on the other side.'' England is ``A Disguised Land'' where nothing is what it seems; in Jamaica, ``Everything is more visible . . . the gunmen, the politics, the sturdy, outspoken people.'' In the comic tale of Shakespeare McNab, politics mingle with folktale and legend. ``The Conversion of Millicent Vernon'' concerns the irony of superstition and its juxtaposition with religion. Of the three stories that verge on fantasy, ``You Left the Door Open'' is especially dark, menacing, and convincing. By turns vivid and elusive, fantastic and real, this collection evokes the transformative voice of a true storyteller.--Mary Soete, San Diego P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In this startling debut collection, which won England's prestigious Guardian Prize, hard-luck Londoners and Caribs find themselves and their environs in a state of metamorphosis. In ``The Conversion of Millicent Vernon,'' a West Indian teenager abandons Christianity after an per web obeah man recommends tree worship to save her rotting teeth; the protagonist of ``The Truth Is in the Clothes'' discovers that the back wall of her London flat opens up on her native Jamaica; ``The Girl with the Celestial Limb'' concerns a shop girl whose leg turns into a black hole that threatens to swallow her. The prominence of the supernatural notwithstanding, these 12 stories are firmly rooted in reality. From an incarcerated Jamaican mother's dulled anguish to a poor woman's desperate efforts to befriend a doctor's wife, Melville depicts people marginalized by the color of their skin or by the emptiness of their pocketbooks in a way that transcends whimsy. The pained social consciousness behind these stories is leavened by a sharp wit, as in ``Tuxedo,'' a tale about a would-be safecracker who talks to his maker ``Jamaica-style'' because ``it makes God feel more like one of the boys.'' Shaman-like, Melville transforms the mundane yet never loses sight of social inequities or of the pleasures of laughter. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

An original collection of 12 short stories by the winner of England's Guardian Prize for fiction. The situations and settings of these unique offerings meander and "shift" back and forth from the heart of central London to the Guyanese coast and the West lndies. As the author implies in her title, the images and characters she has created in both worlds seem to merge and reconfigure in new and unusual ways. While the central theme of this collection proves elusive, readers will simply experience the laughter, sadness, joy, and philosophy of the unique characters. ~--Jane Jurgens

Kirkus Book Review

A first collection of 12 stories (winner of the Guardian Prize in England) that shifts intelligently between London, Guyana, and the Caribbean: very good on local patois and custom, as well as dramatizing a sense of dislocation and a yearning for home. ``Eat Labba and Drink Creek Water,'' a series of instances on ocean-hopping juxtaposed to variations on the myths of El Dorado, most explicitly voices this mood: ``We do return and leave and return again, criss-crossing the Atlantic, but whichever side of the Atlantic we are on, the dream is always on the other side.'' In ``A Disguised Land,'' a woman in England from Jamaica for an unhappy reunion with her mother kites checks and goes on the dole in order to feed her kids, then gets a jail term while pregnant and, after delivering the baby, escapes with it, only to return to the jail with a TV crew--having made an adjustment of sorts to her new home. In ``The Iron and the Radio Have Gone,'' the roles are reversed when a well-meaning Quaker woman goes to Guyana and fails to adapt when confronted by a break-in, street urchins, and various other manifestations of local color. Other stories are quirkier, but there's usually some sort of intercultural transaction at the center of every piece: ``the Conversion of Millicent Vernon,'' for instance, finds the title character trying to save her rotting teeth by pledging ``secret allegiance to the Congo pump tree,'' recommended by a local spirit-man. ``You Left the Door Open,'' about the transformations of a woman attacked while she's sleeping, has a paranoid film noir feel to it, along with a manic edge hovering between horror and black humor. Even the few pieces that are structurally flimsy have a strong sense of place and dialect. A promising debut: Melville's transatlantic stories, in particular, capture the conflict between the exotic and the ordinary.