Camino Ghosts

Content Warning: This section discusses graphic violence, rape, child death, and racism.

As a recurrent symbol in the novel, Dark Isle reflects Black people’s experience in the US. Throughout, the narrative characterizes Dark Isle as a place of pain and survival. This fictional setting reinforces the book’s sense of mystery and is the center of the story’s legal conflict between Lovely and the Tidal Breeze corporation. Dark Isle is Lovely’s homeland and is a “sacred ground” for her since it’s the place where her ancestors are buried. To Tidal Breeze, though, Dark Isle’s uninhabited land is most suitable for land development. However, Dark Isle remains difficult to develop due to its dark history and harsh environment. Consequently, all white people who attempt to approach the island die.

Early in the novel, John Grisham describes Dark Isle as a deserted and undeveloped barrier island off the Florida Coast which once was a “haven” for self-emancipated Black people from Georgia. As the story unfolds, Dark Isle emerges as the place where Nalla landed after the ship Venus, which transported her and other enslaved Africans to the US, sank during a storm. The self-emancipated community of Dark Isle welcomed the “starving” and weathered African people, ensuring them that the island was a “safe” environment and that they were “free.” The Black community was determined to fight for their freedom against white enslavers. Dark Isle was therefore a place of liberation for Lovely’s ancestors, who created a community committed to self-determination, self-defense, and independence. In addition, Lovely describes how the settlement developed into a normal community with a school, a chapel, and “daily routines.”

Life on Dark Isle was also a place of pain and struggle. White enslavers seeking to subjugate the island’s early people constantly harassed the community. These encounters were bloody and violent, as people killed all white men who threatened their freedom. Lovely’s memoir illuminates Dark Isle’s later years, during which the people’s isolation was part of discrimination. Lovely describes people’s struggles due to lack of food and diseases. People on the island had a short life expectancy, and many children died at birth. Because most people in the community died, Lovely and her mother were forced to abandon it. Ultimately, Dark Isle indicates that Black people’s lives in the US were bound by pain and death but also resilience and survival.