Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant

"Sketcher" is about a family growing up in a one-room shack in the swamps just outside New O'lins during the 1980s. That family is made up of four boys, a mum from the Caribbean and a white dad who likes to get drunk. Later the dad walks out.

The narrator is the youngest of the boys, Skid. Straight from the opening sentence you get into his voice, his accent and his talkative nature coming out - "Well to begin with lemme tell you my pops is the reason we grew up in that swamp." His brothers are Tony, Doug and Frico. Frico is the sketcher with brilliant drawing skills that win a lot of praise.

Skid he can see all isn't well in the family with its troubles growing up in that swamp. So "I got to thinkin' that the way to get things back in shape in my family, and make them have some respect for people other than Frico Beaumont, was for me to get the city that had been sleeping for years to start movin' into the swamps again."

Now the way he is going to do that is to make use of the Sketcher's skills. "That boy was more than artistic. He had somethin' in his left hand, a strange power to fix things with a pencil." Like "when Frico was four, he sketched a picture of a cat that had a broken leg. And the cat got better and walked away."

But is this just Skid's imagination or is it real? His mother's former life as a hoodoo user until "it was time to stop all that mojo-conjuring" adds kudos to his thoughts as do other incidents. "Skid, your old lady is a witch and your brother is a wizard."

Anyway as Skid and the family grow older he tries to persuade Frico to put his left hand to good use to bring in the city, but Frico is reluctant. That is until Skid hears about a State of Louisiana State Fair Competition, where the first prize is $5,000, with a theme of "New Orleans 2020. A vision of tomorrow."

He convinces Frico to enter and Frico does, although not winning, but "Frico's art entry was really a conjuration." And so Skid just waits. "This place was so low it could only get better, and any day now would be the new beginning."

However things don't go to plan as Skid realises at the end because the Sketcher had other ideas. "The guy's a genius. You can't beat a genius."

The way of speaking, the swamps setting and the hoodoo reminded me of the Disney film The Princess and the Frog, although this is more than a cartoon. Good book with a cast of characters that you grow up with all told in a good voice.

Publication Date: 23 May 2013

Amazon UK link: Sketcher