Atlantic Ave Magazine September 2023

front row
focus
Jonathan Escoffery
Interviewed and written by Emily Peters | Photo by Cola Greenhill-Casados
Jonathan Escoffery’s debut book, If I Survive You, persuades the reader
to ponder one of the most important questions of the human experience
- what are you? Masterfully chronicled, this collection of linked stories
is a powerful rendition of what it means to grow up examining your
identity, and the lengths one will go to while figuring it out.
In the first short story, “In Flux,” we are introduced to Trelawny
- the youngest son of Jamaican-born parents who fled to the United
States from their homeland, in hopes of escaping political upheaval
and a consequential rapidly increasing crime-rate. Setting the
tone that will continue the underlying trope throughout the novel,
Escoffery’s personal experience mirrors the main character, having
spent his formative years in South Florida encountering many of
these inquiries himself. The metropolitan areas of Miami-Dade, and
Broward Counties equally become fundamental figures by themselves,
serving as a backdrop for a diverse cast of personalities, each
striving to survive life’s calamities - including Hurricane Andrew.
“It’s all influenced by my experience growing up in Miami with
Jamaican parents - but I think of myself as a storyteller first, moreso
than a chronicler of my own life. Since I was eight years old I’ve
been writing and trying to tell interesting and compelling stories.
Some of the choices Trelawny makes, I’ve never even had to think
about… but I did go to grad school in the Midwest, where Trelawny
goes to college. I think in a way, a lot of what he goes through when
he returns, has to do with my anxieties around what I imagined
could have been my fate had I moved back to Miami. At times I
thought I was writing a story collection and other times a novel, but
the spirit of both lives within the book. One of the reasons I went
with my publisher was because they had the idea that we didn’t
have to put a subtitle on the cover that would dictate how people
had to read it. I absolutely loved that notion, because to me… I was
building a cohesive world around this family in Miami, but I wanted
people to read it as they chose, and for the book to exist in that inbetween
space.”
As Trelawny tackles serious life issues, Escoffery’s powerful poeticism
begs the page to be turned and discover the humor deep
within dismay.
“In “Odd Jobs,” when we meet Trelawny, he has been devastated
by having been kicked out of his father’s house and the reality
of living out of his vehicle. We get a quick roundup in the first
paragraph of that particular story, of all his attempts to make
something of himself, and where we leave him at the end - is with
50 | september 2023 | www.AtlanticAveMagazine.com
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