Lost Stitches: The Bostitch Legacy and My Crazy Jamaican Family - Daniel Archer Melville with Rachel Manley

Lost Stitches is a remarkable book that's part family memoir - full of family intrigue and heartbreak - part American history, part romance, and part love-letter to Jamaica. Told in a heartfelt yet humble, candid and relatable way, Danny recounts the amazing legacy of great-grandfather Thomas Briggs and how it was that his heiress daughter, a debutante of Boston society, came to marry Danny's grandfather Harold Melville and move with him to Jamaica to raise a family. Then there are the scandalous stories told of 'The Major' - grandfather Harold Melville, and his seemingly many progenies within and outside his marriage; the tragic stories of the Bostitch sisters Helen and Berenice; of kissing cousins Harold and Josephine, outside families and children, lawsuits and affairs. Danny speaks openly about privilege, legitimacy, prejudice, colour, and class and gives a rare glimpse into the high society lives of white colonial and post colonial Jamaicans.

As Danny puts together the puzzle of his ancestry, his admiration for his great-grandfather, Thomas Briggs grows with every piece of newly traced information. Not so for his grandfather, Harold, who turns out to be a pretty unlikeable character. But his grandmother Berenice is someone Danny wishes he could know better. And ultimately, getting to meet them all through exhaustive research and interviews, Danny learns a lot about himself. He understands why he has done certain things, and behaved in certain ways.