Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

BETWEEN HOST Fae Ellington, who told the tale of her then long, thick, hair tangling with a ripe breadfruit, and Leonie Forbes, who read 'Taming the Beast', the launch of Easton Lee's latest short story collection was a merry affair.

And that was not all the merriment at Alhambra Inn, Tucker Avenue, St Andrew, on Friday, October 24, as a smiling Lee read 'Who Dat', about a pastor falsely rumoured to have been up to sexual shenanigans in a bamboo clump.

'Run big 'fraid' is a collection of predominantly short stories with some poetry (among the latter 'Childhood Smells' and 'Cotton Tree Blues') which Lee dedicates to the ancestral spirits, specifically 'elders' and "all the other old people all over rural Jamaica ..."

Guest speaker Barbara Gloudon put the humour of 'Run big 'fraid' into serious context, even as she told a humorous tale or two herself, one about winning a mango eating contest by downing 48 blackies. "I think Easton is trying to remind us that there was a day when there was honour, the people respected each other," Gloudon said.

In that time "you were not too poor to have honour ... you were not brought up to be red eye and grudgeful".

Gloudon described 'Run big 'fraid' as capturing "the spirit of a people at a particular time in our history ... The tragedy of our time is that we have not called our children to order".

Easton Lee and Barbara Gloudon

Gloudon closed by commenting that many of the old stories are being lost, saying "I am glad Easton is doing this before it all disappears."

Glynis Salmon, owner of the BalaPress imprint which has debuted with Easton Lee's 'Run big 'fraid ... and other village stories', said that she has been in the book industry for 18 years and the gathering that Friday at Alhambra Inn was the largest she had ever seen for a launch.

"We are coming of age, where we are respecting literature and we are respecting the cultural icons in our society," Salmon said, describing Lee as one of those icons.

Franklin McGibbon, chairman of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica, said "these are the things we have to pass down to our children," while Kingston Bookshop CEO, Steadman Fuller, noted the lack of Jamaican titles, especially for children. "Let us have some children stories about mongoose and rat," he said.

The Jamaican Folk Singers provided song and movement to go with stories at the launch of 'Run big 'fraid ... and other village stories'.