The Manley Memoirs

Book excerpt: "From stationmaster s daughter to wife of one of Jamaica s most charismatic prime ministers Beverley Manley s life has been an odyssey. As a young girl, starved of her mother s love because she was darker than her siblings, and forced to do housework while her sisters relaxed, Beverley was a modern-day Cinderella. Told incessantly that she was good for nothing, she defied her mother s prophecy, and triumphed over her ordinary beginnings first as a model in London and later becoming a household name in local radio, television and on stage. It was her path at the then Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) that would lead her directly to Michael Manley and to Jamaica House. Marriage to Michael also lead to her political awakening; not content with being the docile wife, Beverly assumed an activist role in the governing People s National Party (PNP), becoming embroiled in the ideological politics of the 1970s that would eventually lead to her estrangement from Michael, the destruction of their marriage, her flight into the arms of a rival lover and finally to a self-imposed exile in the US, where she took refuge from the ire of the Jamaican elite for daring to walk out on one of their own. But Beverly was to redeem herself and earn new respect as a broadcaster, commentator and incisive interviewer on the immensely popular and innovative Breakfast Club radio show. Now older and much wiser, Beverly tells it like it is in this intriguing and revealing memoir. It is a rags to riches story almost; a story of triumph and loss; of rising again and finally one of redemption." -- Publisher.