A restless New York artist searching for purpose returns to Barbados and stumbles into the role of activist in this scathingly funny and brilliantly observed satire about privilege, family discord, and performative do-gooding.
Dark, lanky, and bald, New York–raised photographer Sabre Cumberbatch can’t tell if she’s highly talented or just highly Instagrammable. Up to here with art critics and their gaseous praise, Sabre returns to Barbados, her childhood island home, to water her roots. She needs to quell self-doubt by doing something—anything—profoundly important.
Welcoming her with bejeweled open arms is her aunt Aggie, a fearsome high-society attorney eager to show off her famous American niece. When Sabre witnesses Aggie unleash her wrath on the household staff over a minor mistake, Sabre finds her cause. During an interview for a puff piece about art, Sabre goes off-script and takes a righteous stand against the tyranny of the ruling class—starting with Aggie.
Overnight, Sabre throws her family and an entire island into chaos. How many ways can the best intentions go wrong? They’re racking up. But tingling with purpose, Sabre is counting on the ways they just might go right.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Dark, lanky, and bald, New York–raised photographer Sabre Cumberbatch can’t tell if she’s highly talented or just highly Instagrammable. Up to here with art critics and their gaseous praise, Sabre returns to Barbados, her childhood island home, to water her roots. She needs to quell self-doubt by doing something—anything—profoundly important.
Welcoming her with bejeweled open arms is her aunt Aggie, a fearsome high-society attorney eager to show off her famous American niece. When Sabre witnesses Aggie unleash her wrath on the household staff over a minor mistake, Sabre finds her cause. During an interview for a puff piece about art, Sabre goes off-script and takes a righteous stand against the tyranny of the ruling class—starting with Aggie.
Overnight, Sabre throws her family and an entire island into chaos. How many ways can the best intentions go wrong? They’re racking up. But tingling with purpose, Sabre is counting on the ways they just might go right.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Let Me Liberate You is a satirical romp through the soft underbelly of bourgeois Barbadian society. With incisive wit and sparkling metaphor, it exposes the hypocrisy and hilarity of life in the corridors of class-conscious Bim, and asks pertinent questions about what it means to be an authentic, aware and altruistic human being in Barbados and the wider world today." - Cherie Jones
"With Let Me Liberate You, Andie Davis has pulled off a dazzling feat of storytelling, featuring Sabre, an accidental artistic genius-turned-inadvertent Bajan activist searching for purpose in an IG-obsessed world. Told hilariously through multiple perspectives, Sabre's misadventures had me laughing my ass off while also thinking deeply about the inequities and absurdities Davis skewers so cleverly. From the brilliantly drawn cast of characters to the gratifying twists, I absolutely loved this book! A rollicking read and a phenomenal debut." - Deesha Philyaw
"A wild ride that kept me turning pages. Barbados and its culture are richly drawn with Davis's deft wit, as is the fascinating cast that populates this astute debut. Sabre Cumberbatch - charmed and hapless by turn, always well intentioned - flees New York, the land of her artistic fame, and returns to her childhood home of Barbados with the simple aim of finding herself. Sabre is anything but simple, however, and it isn't long before her magnetism and ambition provide a spark to an island that is primed to ignite." - C J Washington
"Delightful. They say you can't go home again but Let Me Liberate You is an entertaining, brutally honest, and tender look at one woman's attempt to do so. In Let Me Liberate You, Andie Davis delivers social satire in a refreshingly different setting, taking on race, colorism, and class amid gentrification and family drama in Barbados." - Charmaine Wilkerson
"With Let Me Liberate You, Andie Davis has pulled off a dazzling feat of storytelling, featuring Sabre, an accidental artistic genius-turned-inadvertent Bajan activist searching for purpose in an IG-obsessed world. Told hilariously through multiple perspectives, Sabre's misadventures had me laughing my ass off while also thinking deeply about the inequities and absurdities Davis skewers so cleverly. From the brilliantly drawn cast of characters to the gratifying twists, I absolutely loved this book! A rollicking read and a phenomenal debut." - Deesha Philyaw
"A wild ride that kept me turning pages. Barbados and its culture are richly drawn with Davis's deft wit, as is the fascinating cast that populates this astute debut. Sabre Cumberbatch - charmed and hapless by turn, always well intentioned - flees New York, the land of her artistic fame, and returns to her childhood home of Barbados with the simple aim of finding herself. Sabre is anything but simple, however, and it isn't long before her magnetism and ambition provide a spark to an island that is primed to ignite." - C J Washington
"Delightful. They say you can't go home again but Let Me Liberate You is an entertaining, brutally honest, and tender look at one woman's attempt to do so. In Let Me Liberate You, Andie Davis delivers social satire in a refreshingly different setting, taking on race, colorism, and class amid gentrification and family drama in Barbados." - Charmaine Wilkerson
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